My quiet time book now is To Bless the Space Between Us. Each day every one of us reaches out to someone or are touched by the contact offered to us. How it happens and why can be varied. I have lived through the excitement of a ring offering of a usually black phone that signaled you to me time. It could be a neighbor with just an update that mattered to the two of us or, at one time, the excitement of long distance to lessen the space between not seeing. I can’t imagine my nearest and dearest being an ocean or a continent away and waiting for a ship to arrive or the Pony Express to travel to bring news that matters.
Now we have the single note to announce a word is awaiting. Ping can go to text or voice mail. Either way it announces some action needs two and I am one of them. This time of the year the pings are organizing. A daughter-in-law is coming to be with us from Colorado, more than a day’s drive. Ping to plan pickup. Another ping for gathering the Houston group of us and one more ping to check on son left at home with the dogs. I don’t need to be in charge, so I only know the approximate number of Smiths for Thanksgiving is 60 ish of various ages. The update pings have come to my phone and have multiplied as families who plan the feeding have checked with each other on time honored recipes and sleeping arrangements. Much as I love letters, for these occasions important updates would still be languishing in some Post Office.
My actions are an important part of a good connection. My device: phone, computer, i-pad; is in another room and I don’t hear the ping. I turn off devices to not be bothered and miss the next step in moving forward. The voice mail misspells names and places it doesn’t know and I am not sure what the message meant to say. Then I have to go back to a trusted source to remake a useful contact. To affirm a tie of two doesn’t always come technologically, yet is available if we listen carefully to the directions. God’s ping is stately clearly.
Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” Isaiah 30:21
