When Your Perspective Is Too Small

I’ve seen plenty of pushcarts, cars, buses, and trucks stuck in the mud before. But an airplane? This was a first.

Our small team is in southern Sudan for a month to help a missionary couple build their home. Since the house sits next to the town’s primary airport, a single strip of clay-red earth, we’re among the first to see the day’s arrivals.

Announced by the whir of propellers, a small aircraft approaches. It circles once to check the conditions of the runway, and since no cows block the way, makes its landing.

We watch as the plane comes to a stop at the end of the airstrip. Everything seems fine. The pilot starts turning the plane around. But the soil on the edge of the runway is soft from a week of rainfall, and the front wheel sinks into the mud.

Welcome to Torit.

Aircraft are not light objects. Even one as small as this weighs around 7000 kg (15400 lbs). But that doesn’t stop the onlookers.

Dozens of people from the town run onto the runway. Together, they not only lift the front wheel out of the mud, but reposition it on firmer ground. They guide the plane back to the center of the runway with nothing more than man power.

How did they do that? How is that possible?

***

i’m like an aircraft
flying over grassy plains
i just see prairie

Caught up in my world, it’s easy for me to forget my worldview is a small one. I’m one among many.

No one perceives the world exactly as I do. It’s a blessing in some ways, allowing me to speak with a different voice.

But on many occasions, my perspective leaves me blind. It leaves me operating on a set of incomplete or invalid assumptions. It prevents me from seeing other possibilities.

***

called
to attend
to accompany
to accept
those less fortunate
but for whose benefit?

When I was in high school, a group of us visited a widow who lived in the neighboring community. I brought along many assumptions about what we were doing, and who we were going to see.

We were going to help someone in need of our encouragement. They were poor, and we were showing compassion. We were sacrificing our time. We were the ones doing the giving.

Yet walking through the door of the woman’s humble dwelling place left me humbled.

She welcomed us with a smile, looking each of us in the eye as she shook our hands. She honored us.

She served us tea and food. Out of the little she had, she showed us hospitality.

She told her story, sharing not only her challenges, but her hope. The life within her shone through the joy of her smile and the kindness in her eyes. She inspired us.

I went to bless, but it was I who was blessed. I went to change someone’s life, but it was I who was changed.

***

decrease altitude
notice that the grassy field
is more than just grass

Challenge your assumptions by exposure to others. Open yourself to their alternate perspectives.

Talk to people who are different then you. You can learn from anyone.

Read books. They’re full of new ideas. Linchpin by Seth Godin, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau, and The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt are a few that affected me.

Travel the world. Appreciate and talk with the people you meet.

Explore your neighborhood. You can witness sights you’ve never seen before.

Each interaction nudges you to think differently about the world.

***

people are much more
than the story their label
tends to indicate

I used to think homelessness was a uniform experience – that everyone who asked me for money on the sidewalk was there for the same reason.

But as I started talking to those men and women, my assumptions turned out false. Only a handful of them lived on the streets long term. Most had just fallen on hard times.

Some had families to support.

Some had kids long grown up.

Some were single.

Some were in transit and ran out of funds to get to their next destination.

Some had lost their jobs and were trying to survive while they looked for new work.

Some lived on the streets.

Some had apartments nearby.

Some stayed at shelters.

Each person had a different experience. I couldn’t put them under a single label. Even calling them homeless didn’t work anymore.

It changed how I saw them. Instead of seeing lazy bums who didn’t want to work, I saw men and woman facing difficult situations. They were people who caught a bad break and didn’t have a safety net to fall back on. I saw human beings.

***

blossom as flowers
covering the grassy field
so full of beauty

As you open yourself to others, your worldview expands. You do and imagine new possibilities. You gain new understanding.

Your story becomes authentic, beautiful, and full of life. It grows and blossoms.

From that abundance, you are blessed. And you bless others.

***

once you witness all
the life in the grassy field
you won’t forget it

A week has passed since the plane got stuck. We pause our work to watch a group of men with their cow. They’re trying to load it into the back of a truck.

Cows are not small animals. They weigh about 400 kg (840 lbs). Yet these eight men, with a decent bit of effort, lift the cow into the air and onto the back of the truck – no machines, just human strength.

I should be surprised, but watching a group of people lift the front of an airplane the week before adjusted my expectations. Carrying a cow doesn’t seem so unusual anymore.

###

PHOTO: Stuck in the mud. Torit, Sudan.