Yesterday was one of those travel adventures to write home about. Or when you’re thankful to even get home at all.

We were leaving Orlando, waiting at the gate, thinking we were five minutes away from boarding our plane.

All was well until they informed us there was a security incident and all planes were grounded. Twitter informed us that a TSA officer had committed suicide in the lobby at the terminal. We learned later that in the panic of the moment, several people had rushed through security. Now everyone at the gate (who had already been through security) needed to return to the terminal in order to go back through security.

It was madness.

Yet, the controlled madness that we often experience in America. Even in chaos, we tend to be pretty good at lines.

There were thousands of us. Almost everyone was calm. And with few exceptions people entered into each other’s stories.

We stood by a father and son on their way to the Super Bowl, the kid asking Renee’ questions like “why do people commit suicide?” A couple of different families coming and going from their Disney vacations.

These were incredibly human moments of craziness at the Orlando International Airport, We were experiencing sonder.

Sonder is the realization that everyone around you is living a life that’s as vivid and complex as your own life. That the person in the car in front of you has hopes and dreams, family and friends, and fears and worries. You and I are the stars in our own drama. But you and I are barely extras in someone else’s drama. We’re people in the background. Extras riding the escalator and having dinner at the booth in the corner.

Everyone is living complicated lives.

For a moment on Saturday morning in Orlando, several of those epic life stories collided for a few hours. Yes, it was inconvenient. Yes, my feet still hurt today from standing for 5 hours yesterday.

But today I’m a better person because, in a difficult and horrible situation, I saw Imago Dei.

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