[Originally published in the Monroe News on June 21, 2024]
Do you remember those Southwest Airlines commercials from the early 2000s? They were the “Wanna Get Away” commercials. Lots of good, fun embarrassing moments in those commercials. One of my favorites was the Ancient Art of Sand Painting commercial. They show these artists working on this beautiful piece of sand art and a tour guide explaining how they had been working on carefully placing grains of sand for over eight days. Another woman with a camera leans in to take a picture and then suddenly sneezes, ruining everything. The narrator cuts in “wanna get away?”
In life’s embarrassing and shameful moments we are stricken with this innate desire to want to get away. We want to run and hide from the shame we are feeling. Its something we all share. You see it in our toddlers when they know they’ve done something wrong and they hide in the corner or under the bed. You see it in relationships when people don’t know how to talk to each other and avoid each other. It is a part of our broken nature to hide and to cover up our shame and embarrassment.
