dubai2I’m in Dubai where there is much construction taking place. The construction workers work hard all day long in 40 degree heat. At lunchtime, they lie in the shade to rest.

Looking out from my 17th floor balcony, I’m feeling quite content. The internet connection is stable, the room is comfortable, my work is all laid out on the desk and I’m just where I want to be.

As I look out, my attention is caught by a man lying in the shade. He is uniformed head-to-toe in blue like all the other construction workers and there is a shoe beside him. He has one leg stretched out. The other leg is missing. There is just a short, black stump where his right thigh should be.

I’m humbled of course. I’m also in awe of a man who does construction on high-rises with only one leg. How does he climb up and down? I wonder why the stump is thin and black. Is it an implant of some kind? I wonder what his life must be like. My mind weaves an intricate story about his misfortunes and in the background, I’m acutely aware of all my comforts.  I grow increasingly sad at the unfairness of it all.

As I’m about to turn, the man moves. Miraculously, his missing leg appears!! He had been lying with his right leg bent up at the knee. The black “stump” was his sock covered foot. The blue of his trousers had blended so perfectly with the blue of his top and the bird’s-eye angle was such that I had not been able to see this. Now I also see that the one shoe beside him is wide enough to actually be two shoes.

My relief was immediate and I said “Thank you” even though I don’t know who I was thanking… God for not crippling him? Or the man for freeing me from my humbling guilt?

Strangely, there has been a string of events in the last few days where I have been surprised by the reality of something being different to what I had thought. It’s almost as if I am being gently prodded to go slower, be less hasty to put a label on an event, take my time with evaluation.

If I had turned away a second earlier, I’d have spent the day (days probably) pondering this man’s life, creating a story, looking for imagined turning points. Elements of this story would come back in the future to remind me of what I “saw” today.  Instead, I’m full of humility at my own ability to see and run away with things that are not there.

Taking things at face value is of course normal. I saw what I thought I saw – the story I created based on what I thought I saw was however quite remarkable.

Whose face do you see when you take things at face value? In the spirit of the Paradox of Reality, we don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.