The Sum of a Person...

I can sum a child up in about five minutes...




The words came so easily from her mouth, like water spilling over the side of a peak. And they entered my ears, traveled to my thoughts and flooded my heart. Five minutes? How can one know another--the total being of a person--in FIVE minutes? Five minutes might offer a glimpse, a peek of what a person is about...but the sum of a person? To know the sum is to know every detail, every experience, every laugh, every tear, every mistake, every victory, every thing that makes a person who they are. How could five minutes offer that kind of information, that kind of insight?

But that's what we do, isn't it? Make decisions about people in minutes.

The girl dressed in black from head to toe and adorned with jewelry in her nose can't possibly be a good friend for our child. But the minutes don't allow us to see how she hurts from the divorce of her parents. The black keeps people away and the jewelry places the pain of her heart in her nose.

The boy on the side of the street whose pants hang too low and whose overconfident stride spells TROUBLE---how can he be so disrespectful? What is happening to the youth these days? But the minutes don't tell us of the lonely nights he spends with little food and without a Father,while his mother works her second job.

The minutes only allow us to see and hear what's on the outside--harsh looks, hateful words, rolling eyes, too much make-up, not enough clothing, dark stares, angry fists.

But underneath the surface lives the sum of a person--and it takes more than five minutes to do the math.

:)