"You're a busy-body." "So sue me."

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors."

-C. S. Lewis  

When I was little, there was this weird, dry, boring thing called "social studies". I never really knew what they were. It was an optional category on the standardized tests and when we asked Mama why we didn't do them she'd say, "We've got that covered." It wasn't till I grew up that I realized what she meant. See, Mama and Dad raised us to be extroverts. While working with GenJ this fall I was talking to a politico over dinner: "So I take it you've always been this outgoing and...forthright?" he asked with a wry smile.
    I laughed. "Actually I used to be super shy and when I'm around shy people it comes out now and then." (If you're wondering, yeah, he was shy and I started tripping up on my words explaining the situation.)

     Know what dragged me out of my shy funk? People. People are just so darn interesting.

     A quiet, retreating personality might not be able to understand my fascination with people at first thought, but let me ask you a question: have you ever sat by yourself at a coffee-shop and watched someone across the room or out the front window and let your mind wander? That's people-watching. That's social studies. That's finding people too darn interesting to let yourself be a hermit. Mama knew that we were curious kids. She knew that sooner or later, in a world full of color and personalities and back-story and drama, we'd take notice and start watching. She encouraged us to be around people and ask questions and watch life and take part in it. So what if I never took that test or read a social studies book? I read history. I watched people. I used my vibrant little brain and put two and two together and now the East Coast has a voraciously curious young woman on their hands. I can't stop watching people and thinking about people and making up their stories in my head. I have all these weird ideas and because I don't live in NYC or Seattle, I make up for the lack of tangible scenarios by writing books about the scenarios I wish I had time to live.

     I want to write a mystery called Brownstone and explore the relationships of fellow-tenants who ignored each other beforehand, brought into an unlikely, hilarious community by the appearance of a body (or an abandoned baby..don't know which) on their collective doorstep.

     I want to conduct an experiment and write a book called Ten, Noon by choosing one corner of a coffee shop or cafe in a big city and sitting there every day for a year for two hours (from ten to noon) and people-watching and seeing what sort of morphing, yet tight community you'd get. Probably there'd be love and heartbreak and good deeds and deceit and life and death and lots of interesting things happening in that corner, and it'd be a best-seller book when I'd finished and I'd get to sell thousands of copies and buy an old stone house somewhere with the profits. Don't steal my idea. You know it's a good one. (COPYRIGHT 2013 by Rachel Heffington)

     I'm one of the most observant people I know and it's mostly because I grew up in a family that didn't find themselves too busy to walk a little slower, discuss details, and imagine things. I can meet you once and remember your face. I can go home and tell my family exactly what conversations I carried on with whom, what they were wearing, what color their eyes were, and "write" a verbal portrait so my family ends up in laughter, fear, or a swoon. It's not like I'm particularly gifted in that area; I'm not Sherlock Holmes, I'm just...sociable. People are fascinating.

  What I want you to realize is that I'm not advocating humanism. I believe we live in a fallen world. I believe in original sin. I believe that people are inherently flawed and that the only way to heal the breach between ourselves and our Creator is to put ourselves under the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And you know what...? Maybe that's why I find people so interesting. Maybe I'd rather study humans than birds and flowers and plants and saving the ocean because probably I'm not a people-watcher after all..probably I'm a soul-watcher. I am passionately curious about people because every single face on the street belongs to a soul that was specially created to play a particular part in the epic drama that is our history and future. I feel the stories and I want to know them. And more than I want to know them, I want to know that they are going on with me into eternity...and on the right side of the chasm at that. I want to know that these people realize they're part of the drama...and they have a particular choice to make.

     Social studies...evangelism...there's probably a way to combine those two things. I'd like to learn how. How do I overcome the remaining bits of my shyness and turn my curiosity to compassion? How do I reach into the reflective, smooth-running current of anonymous people-watching and help them untangle their souls without ruining any of the beautiful dignity? But maybe that's it again...maybe the beautiful dignity comes from the fact that they are souls that need untangling. Maybe dabbling my fingers in the pretties of the brook will only make it more beautiful, fuller, smoother...Fact is, I love people and the reason I love them is because He loves them. They're pieces of Him, birthed in His laughter and delight, desperately in need of the Rescuer. Image-bearers, all of us. Somehow, there's a way for me to be a liaison between heaven and earth...somewhere there's a gap I will slide into like the final tumbler in a Chinese puzzle-box. This post might not even make sense to a single blessed soul but me...and if that's the case, I won't apologize. Chalk it up to a lesson for you in studying people like me.

Social studies? Hrmph. Such a silly name for such a marvelous thing.