Cosmic déjà vu?

I don’t know what else to call this thing that I’ve experienced 3 or 4 times in my life. It’s very difficult to explain, let alone describe - but I’ll try.

Last week, Sunday to be exact, I parked my car in the church’s parking lot, exited and began walking to the auditorium to participate in the worship service.

As I crossed the parking lot and stepped onto the sidewalk, everything took on a surreal kind of flavor - sounds faded away, but at the same time were intensively heightened in my brain. Colors became dull & gray, but also took on a sharper, more defined kind of HD quality at the same moment. The young people hanging out in front of the youth building became a few of the billions on our planet, yet their faces, mannerisms, demeanor and appearance were strikingly etched in my memory.

My thoughts bounced from an earthly perspective to another perspective - beyond earth.

At that moment, I felt suspended between heaven & earth. I felt torn between this home and my heavenly home.

I felt strangely removed from “today” and warmly connected to “timelessness.”

I know. It sounds like I was tripping on some kind of hallucinogenic.

I remember the first time I had this kind of experience. I was a new believer in Christ and I was in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The same surreal sense came over me and I remember thinking - as I passed hundreds, maybe thousands, of people on the street that day - “Why is it that we -- all of us human beings who have been put on this single, solitary planet with the same basic needs & wants -- cannot find a way to co-exist in a humane manner?” We pass each other on the street and don’t even acknowledge one another with a look, let alone a greeting. We act as though we - ourselves - are all that matters; that no one else matters or is of importance or value.

These moments, though few, are memorable as they put a new spin, a new perspective on day-to-day living and how easily we forget that there are others around us who would welcome a simple head nod of acknowledgement, a small smile of recognition, a word of greeting.

Maybe we can’t “change the world,” but we can change the world around us, don’t you think?