I hunted for cargo shorts in the big mall in Bangkok yesterday. It’s a fascinating place; a true cultural crossroads. Asia meets the West, and both meet the World.

There’s a few American chains like Starbucks, McDonalds, and Burger King. And there are chains that I’ve never heard of from other countries. And there’s an army of hundreds of Thai mom & pop stands selling knock-off purses and clothes and used iPhones and skin-whitening creams. And you can get a Thai massage, a mani-pedi, and permanent makeup–tattooed on your face! Everywhere the merchandise is piled high in stacks or overflowing in heaps. In this land-before-Yelp-reviews, the sellers hang dozens of handwritten testimonials above their shops, written in all the World’s languages. “So-and-so is very trustworthy,” “So-and-so has great prices,” “I will shop with so-and-so again!”

The mall is jammed with thousands of tourists. There are Americans, Europeans, Koreans, business people, backpackers, Muslims, monks, teenagers, and sizable tour groups of elderly white people. The names of the stores are in English only; the mall map is in English, Japanese, and Russian, but not Thai. There are 6 busy floors and crisscrossing escalators and all the noise of crowds, music, and salespersons on megaphones.

I took a pause in this wilderness.

I looked around; drank it in. Humans are so bizarre and curious. How utterly unlikely is all this scene before me? Nature’s splendor.

And as I observed, a Middle-Eastern couple walked past me and they approached an escalator, going up. The woman was probably in her mid-30’s. She wore a full black chador, so only her face was showing. She paused at the base of the moving stairs and looked nervous. The man urged her to step on, but she remained unsure. So she balanced her weight on one foot, and used the other foot to tap the moving escalator a few times. Each time she pulled her foot back as if the escalator were too hot to touch. She looked at her partner as if to say, “I don’t think I can do this,” and he urged her forward with his gestures and his words.

At last, with determination, she turned and met the escalator. She stepped forward–and she ascended! Gazing skyward, eyes fixed upon her destination, she was carried up! A warm and massive smile broke across her face! Her lips pulled back wide, displaying gleaming teeth, and her sparkling eyes and cheeks expressed a joy that I might only find at the top of a rollercoaster! Resplendent and radiating; she beamed, she ascended! Skyward! Glowing! Up! Up!

And I… didn’t find any cargo shorts in the mall. I simply witnessed an Assumption into Heaven! And a joy in my heart. And a fondness for our species.