The invisible world on the other side of you.

So here's the setup...

New York photographer Richard Renaldi takes absolute strangers off of the street and has them pose for pictures as if they were old friends or family. The results are surprising...and compelling. Take a look.

This reinforces what I think we all feel often.

• When our nameless dog walking neighbor walks by our house and we give the obligatory wave and greeting.
• When we close the garage door behind us before even getting out of the car effectively shutting out the world.
• When we run errands on a mission seeing people as either helpful to the task or simply in the way.

I don't know if you resonate, but I have been convicted lately about the fact that I don't know the people right around me. My neighbors, the store clerks of my "regular" establishments, and even my co-workers.

This is not ok.

My problem is that if I don't know them, I can't really care about them. If I don't care about them, I won't feel compelled towards their well-being.

This is not ok.

I bet if I were to intentionally disrupt my normal. Have a conversation. Shake a hand. Tell some bad jokes. Share a meal.

I bet I would find that there are some great friends all around me that were invisible.

Some great needs all around me that were invisible.

The lie is that if we move faster and faster, we will live better.

The truth is that the faster we move, the shallower we are. The thinner the relationships.

If we can move slow enough to engage with the "strangers" around us, we may find the depth we have been looking for begin to materialize.

It was there the whole time...invisible...waiting for us to simply take notice and engage.