Modesty Requires Looking Away

By Tim Challies - Posted at @challies:

The plane reached the terminal in Recife, Brazil and the ground crew opened the door. I have been through more airports than I can count1 and find they all kind of blur together—jetways, corridors, escalators, luggage belts. But for some reason, I remembered this one from my previous visit. After exiting the secure area, I waited a few moments for my host to arrive, and then together we headed into the city and toward my hotel.

We were just minutes from the airport when we came across the scene of an accident. A motorbike was crushed and broken on the ground beside a transport truck. Nearby, a group of people was clustered on the sidewalk, surrounding someone or something. My eyes turned away from them and, in the roadway, spotted a child who was lying still. For reasons I will not describe, it was clear that he had been involved in the accident and clear that he had not survived. He was lying face down, alone, deceased. He could have been 6 or 8 years old, I suppose, but I did not let my eyes linger long enough to tell.

I looked away. I looked away because I could not bear to look at a tragedy as terrible as this one. But I also looked away because I knew the scene wasn’t mine to look at. I was just a stranger, a passerby, a foreigner. There was nothing I could do, nothing I could say, no way I could help. My host and I drove on in stunned silence, sick to our stomachs, and praying for that boy’s brokenhearted family.

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