A county fair in Los Angeles is a curious thing. Juicing machines and manual salsa makers and electric shiatsu massagers aside, the County Fair in the outlying town of Pomona seemed, to this young boy, a relic of Los Angeles' distant past. I was intrigued. Where did these cows and pigs and sheep live when not at the Fair? I never saw them in the suburban town of Lynwood where our family resided. I sort of assumed that the herds and the droves and the flocks were on loan from another county's fair. I can imagine the Chief Operating Officer of the Los Angeles County Fair calling vendors to order hot dogs and cotton candy and churros. And farm animals. Lots of farm animals, please. It all seemed so surreal. Otherworldly. I could not have been older than three years when I first attended the Los Angeles County Fair. Well, at least, the first trip I can remember. The day was hot. The fairgrounds were crowded. Two adjectives I've since sought to avoid. Okay, you're right. I've managed one out of two in moving to the Deep South. I recall walking hand in hand with my mother through an exposition hall. It was so crowded that people really should have introduced themselves. In one moment my little fingers were safely in the grasp of my mother's hand; in the next, she was gone and I was alone. Alone in a vast sea of people. Loosed from the mooring of my mother's hand. Anxiously, breathlessly, I quickly turned about, assuming I'd find her just behind me. But she wasn't there. Instead, I saw something I had never before witnessed. This little boy was pressed by the crowd into the empty pant leg of a strange man held aright with crutches. What're the odds? It all seemed so surreal. Otherworldly. At three years old--forgive the insensitive impression of a child--an empty pant leg, tied in a knot at the cuff, was horrifying. I had no knowledge of missing limbs. Of empty pant legs. Of anything but wholeness, completeness. And in that same moment, I had lost sight of my mother. I cried and screamed in the same short breath. The crowd parted about me. And my mother stepped forward and scooped me into her arms. Tough thing is, the world is filled with empty pant legs. Unwhole. Ungrounded. Unresolved. People. Circumstances. Stuff. And as we grow older, we discover there are few who are able to scoop us into their arms. And it can all seem so surreal. So otherworldly. What's the "empty pant leg" in your life? What feels unwhole, ungrounded, unresolved? From what place comes the need to be scooped up and saved from that which is incomplete? How, really, is perfection so much better than the mystery, the adventure, the romance, the challenge, of imperfection? How might faith in one who is larger than you and I give us a sense of ground and assurance against that which is incomplete or unknowable? How might coming to grips with empty pant legs ease our fears, temper our resentments, bring us peace? |