Sometimes We Think We See What We Just Want to See

Summer 1964-when we were in town (a Wikipedia photo)

My sister and I remember traveling, on a summer trip to my dad’s childhood home in Wauseon, Ohio, and going through St. Louis, where the famous Arch was under construction. Actually, we recall the visit for a more compelling reason. Our car was broken into.

This is what a wing window is, for you youngsters who might not have ever seen one. (Also a Wikipedia photo)

We were in town on a Sunday and visited the St. Louis Science Center. While we were inside, some nefarious evil-doer was outside on the street. Maybe he noticed the out-of-state license plates on the car and decided we must be tourists and might have some valuables inside. He knocked out the wing window on the front driver’s side, reached in, and unlocked and opened the door.

The radio in our car didn’t work, so Daddy had brought along a transistor radio and kept it on the dashboard close to him. That got stolen. Mother and I had taken our purses with us, and we had taken our cameras, too. JoAnne, age 9, had left her purse in the car. That was gone. Also in the car, in a borrowed Infant Seat, was JoAnne’s baby doll, Penny. The thief was apparently uninterested in her (even though she was a Madame Alexander doll!), and left her alone.

We were surprised and alarmed when we returned to our car. Daddy called the police and by time they arrived, we had inventoried our losses and were able to make a report. The damage? Broken wing window. What had we lost? A not-so-new transistor radio and the purse of a nine-year-old. The contents of the purse? A comb, a tube of play lipstick, a pencil, and about a hundred pieces of paper that JoAnne used for play money and to write notes on. We got a good laugh, imagining the great disappointment of the thief, who mistook the vehicle of some tourists as a trove of pawnable treasure and probably some cash. There actually was some cash in the car-ten dollars, a significant amount back in 1964. It was JoAnne’s “souvenir” money, and it was in a small zipped leather bag…tucked under Penny’s arm, safe and secure. Poor thief. He was looking in the wrong place.

A few years, later, after JoAnne and I were grown and away from home, Mother and Daddy returned to St. Louis and took the elevator up into the Arch. As they were looking around the city from that great height, Daddy (as he told us later) saw a large sign on the side of a building. It said, “Beat Rice.”

Now, as a long-time Baylor University fan, he was impressed that someone in the St. Louis area was aware of Southwest Conference athletics and wanted to beat Rice University, in every endeavor, apparently.

It took him a while to realize that the large sign actually said, “Beatrice,” a reference to the large food conglomerate. Poor Daddy. He was reading the sign the wrong way.

There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.
2 Corinthians 4:18The Message (MSG)

There’s more than meets the eye almost everywhere we look.
“When I first met her I thought…”
“When I first saw him I thought…”
“When we first looked at the house, we thought…”
“When she first bought that car, I thought…”
“When he first asked me out, I thought…”
Or, even, “When I first visited that church, I thought…”

Almost everything merits a second look, another chance, some change in how we feel. A change that might last forever.