People make their living writing an article a week on technology – changes and how to manage them. I, along with others, am caught in the backwash of how at ease I want to be with that which is new. However, while moving forward, I do try to keep having to be au courant to a minimum. Change is the word for the ages from horse drawn carriages to horseless carriages. My mother who lived in three centuries moved from a party line, to an operator, to a dial phone and even saw long distance after 6 p.m. on Sunday disappear.
After several false starts and one scarey one, I am doing quite well with a QR, those lines and turns that lead to Quick Response. Some have been aware of their possibilities since 1994 when they were invented, if that is the correct term. The amazing part to me is that, supposedly, ordinary people can create one. In 2011 I shared teaching with a younger woman. She taught our students how to attach a QR to a paragraph. This way, a picture of one’s house in the morning could appear along with the writing explaining the sequence of leaving for school. My job was to staple to the bulletin board and be amazed. Even in our low income school each child had to cell phone to create and view.
Step 2 was more pleasant yet not more intuitive. A local music group attached QR’s to various stops along a nature trail. A friend and I could walk, sit, copy code, and enjoy a piece tied to that place. Again, it was her expertise and phone that made it happen. All I did was read about the possibility in the paper and make a suggestion.
Then I got caught unprepared. I came up to a parking garage and the sign where I usually just punch a button said USE QR CODE TO OPEN BAR. I froze. Cars lined up behind me. No one honked, yet it was not a comfortable place to be. A young woman knocked on my side window. “Just take a picture. It’ll work. There are signs inside.” A minor miracle and I moved ahead with, as the saying goes, the faith of Abraham. Another hurdle was taking another picture and being able to enter my license plate and my credit card. After tending to my business, I timidly asked if I would be in the garage all night. The secretary assured me that all was captured in the proper place and would allow me to leave. Sure enough, as I approached the exit bar it rose, as if we were good friends and it had been waiting for me,
Yesterday I realized I had crossed into a capable zone. The day had been long. At 3:00 lunch had not happened. I walked to a nearby casual eating place to have my favorite soup/sandwich combo. I paid and went to my table. In the center was a QR code. I snapped the picture and entered the number of my ticket. Sure enough, in a reasonable time, the young waitress found me, outside under the shaded overhang. I had not even considered that this might not work. You’re right. The Bible is sparse on technology, yet there is always the promise that something new is waiting to happen.
Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and a river in the desert. Isaiah 43:19
Let Me Tell Ya 