OUTCAST

I’m a pariah.  I’m an outcast.  I’m hated by all those around me.  Nobody likes me and nobody wants to be close to me and my wife.  Why you may ask?  You seem like a nice enough guy.  You seem funny, or at least you think you are.  Why do people hate you?  I’m traveling,..in an airplane with…a baby.  Everywhere else we go people look at him and say things like

“He’s such a sweet baby.”

“He’s so cute.”

“Does he always smile?”

“Wow he laughs a lot, he is such a happy baby”

A quick aside: I realize all parents think their child is the best, the cutest, the smartest, etc.  In my case though it is the truth.  Jason Andrew Crandall Jr. (Drew) is the sweetest, cutest, happiest baby that any young parents could ever ask for.  I’m sure we are being lulled into a false sense of reality, but as of right now, other than a HUGE lack of sleep, our baby is incredible. 

Back to the point

We hear this all the time from friends, family, and strangers.  That is true in EVERY place with the exception of two places: the airport and the airplane.  As soon as you walk into one of these places with a baby you are the redheaded step child.  Business travelers after a long week of work in a strange city, small hotel room, and being away from their families are ready to eat you.  Single people look at you and swear to themselves that they will never have children and if they do then they will never subject others to them until they are much, MUCH older.  Young married couples, the ones without kids, look at you and think: “what is the matter with them?”.  The only looks of neutrality (I do mean merely neutrality) are from those who have gone before on this crazy venture of traveling with an infant.  They look, shake their heads (remembering a time that was much harder), and walk on or go back to whatever they were doing while turning up the volume in their iPods or on their computers or really trying to engross themselves in their book.

All this to say the looks are like laser beams piercing through you, no wait they are more like the teeth of sharks slowly ripping your skin from your flesh.  The feeling is awful.  The feeling is overwhelming.  The feeling is shared by someone:

“He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”

Disfigured, beaten, torn, and battered.  He was shunned by the world, by his own people, and, when on the cross, even those closest to him.  This is Jesus.  This is Messiah.  This is my Savior.  This is my king, now more beautiful than could ever be understood or comprehended.    

So what’s the point of this blog entry Jason?  Is it to make us feel sorry for you traveling?  Is it to make us think about those poor paents with young children and maybe turn our heads instead of stabbing them in our minds?  Is it to make us think about Jesus and what he had to endure?  I guess the answer to all the questions would be yes.  But the big thought is this: who do we look at like that?  Who are those people in our paths who we walk by without thought or care.  Or worse yet - despise, shun, and ignore?  The company they keep now may be undesirable.  The position they are in may be unthinkable, but they share something in common with the creator of all life, of all matter, and…everything else. 

By the way, Drew is napping next to me right now.  He hasn’t cried at all (did you hear that weird European sitting in front of me who keeps staring at all the babies on the plane?) and we are rapidly approaching our destination.  Maybe that outcast isn’t all that you thought they were.