If you think social media is too impersonal, too permeable, not trustworthy, and simply too hard to figure out, God probably doesn’t think what you think.
My wife wanted me to wake her up early this morning even though we were up late with a late-night counseling session. When she mentioned that the early wake-up call was because she is intending to wash her hair this morning, I questioned that. I questioned the need for that since I knew she had a hair appointment tomorrow and she would obviously be getting her hair washed then.
I’ve been sort of dreading today. And the fact that I used the term “sort of” is an immediate indication of foul play. I should have been seriously dreading it, and the fact that I have been only sort of dreading it is an indication of how much I have fooled myself into thinking this issue isn’t as important as it is. Believe me, this is important, and for relationships, it’s hard to think of anything more important. To turn a blind eye on this is to destroy the very foundation all relationships are built on. I am speaking, of course, about the issue of trust.
Marti is a believer in fairies. Say in her presence: “If you really believe, clap your hands,” and vociferous hand-clapping will ensue.
But, on the other hand, she can be the realist, too — insisting on getting to the bottom of things as she did when we sent out our recent open letter stating: “We need to be realistic. Failure is a natural part of this journey we share at the Catch. In fact, (enter fairy dust) we celebrate failure for it is the one thing that we know will turn us around, always forcing us to be transparent with one another, which continually builds the trust we all require in everything we do.” Those are our themes for this week: transparency and trust. These work together; one making the other possible, and failure is a key that unlocks them both.
I love this picture. It’s been around so you’ve probably already seen it, but I want to comment on it today.
I haven’t seen this as much as Marti has, but she tells me that on at least a couple of occasions, out in public, Chandler has volunteered to help a woman struggling with a fussy baby by offering to hold the baby, and each time, the baby has immediately quieted down in Chandler’s arms. It’s amazing that a mother would trust a stranger like Chandler — and a teenager no less — in the first place, but perhaps they somehow see something in his transparency that they can trust. You can actually see it in this picture. There is a visual communication going on here — a sort of mutual understanding, as if these two old souls have met before somewhere, somehow. It’s almost as if we are privy to a silent conversation.
Elizabeth, our daughter-in-law, has a friend named Grace. They are extremely close — like sisters. For a season, when they were much younger, Grace lived with Elizabeth’s family, so they really are sisters in that they have lived under the same roof. You may know someone like this, but Grace is one of those extremely talented, resourceful people who seem to be able to do just about anything, and do it well. When Grace gives a gift, it’s usually something she’s made. Pretty much whatever needs to be done, Grace knows about it, and can do it.
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Ebenezer Scrooge’s first visitor took him back in time for a look into his former life. For Scrooge, as it would be for any of us, this trip was for the purpose of discovering the choices, both good and bad, that helped contribute to making him the person he was.
Dead as a door-nail, old Marley. Dickens makes sure we know that, ruling out all possibility of a living door-nail. Marley has to be good and dead, or else the story doesn’t work. The benefit of Jacob Marley’s ghostly visit is the hope of Scrooge escaping a similar fate.
I have endeavored in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humor with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.
Their faithful Friend and Servant,
C. D.
December, 1843.
With this brief, friendly salutation, Charles Dickens introduced A Christmas Carol, to the world — a story that almost singlehandedly turned Christmas into the celebration that it is today in Britain and America. In it, Dickens describes Christmas as “a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of other people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”
John Fischer The Catch 