I was busy in the kitchen making a couple of loaves of sourdough bread and fixing pork chops for supper when Daughter #1 shot me a quick text. She told me Big was just about to participate in a swim meet and if I went to this FB page, I could watch it live. I was thrilled! My son-in-law’s mom and I watched her swim in all three events. It’s not the same as being there, but being included and getting to see her swim was so fun! I dished up our plates because the food was ready and wasn’t going to keep well in the oven. I handed Mr. FixIt his and I sat at the bar in the kitchen and watched and cheered my big girl on!
Later in the evening, I joined a zoom concert my good friend and financial advisor, Danielle Howard, put together featuring Jackson Emmer. You can find his music on YouTube and iTunes and check out his website, as well. He has a really interesting voice. He says he kind of shredded his vocal cords with all his years singing at high altitude and it’s left this with the rasp that actually sounds harmonic. If you didn’t watch him, you’d thing there was someone else harmonizing with him. It was really interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed the show. You can check him out HERE.
What a treat it was to be connected with the outside world in such a way. While technology can often be a curse, the fact that we can work remotely and share dinner with our family and friends listen to a concert with folks spread out over the entire country…well, that’s just a marvel is what it is. I used to think how amazing it was all the things that were invented and developed in my grandma’s lifetime. And now? Now, here I am…not only the grandma, but the GREAT grandma, too. I tell them we didn’t get our first TV till I was 8 or 9 years old…that I watched the first satellite launch and saw it cross the night sky…that I had the first personal calculator ever produced and it cost over $400…that our first cell phone was in a small suitcase and had the regular handset and curly cord of a phone, and that was in 1990! I tell them we didn’t get a home computer till their mom was in middle school. We had dial up and flip phones.
The upside of all this technology is connection, productivity and information. The downside is the cacophony of busyness and noise, the scramble for our attention, the constant barrage of politics and rancor and discord. I have to wonder…what would this Covid Crisis and Election Season be like if we didn’t have the technology we have now? What if it was just Walter Cronkite telling us there was a bad disease and it’s going to be hard, but here’s what we have to do get through it? I have to think this would be a whole different scenario. Maybe there would be less discord, but there would be a lot more isolation and loneliness.
Progress. Change. You know what they say…the only thing you can count on is change. And, Lord…this has certainly been a season of change. I think…I hope…I hope we’re going to learn a lot from this period of time and we’ll be the better for it down the road. I read something the other day by an American pastor and author. He was talking about how BIG God is. We sometimes make the things of the world seem like that are bigger than God. But, that does a disservice to God. Because when you make the things of the world large, you make God small. That’s not to say there aren’t pressing matters of great importance facing us right now. There are. But God is greater than all of this and He wins. God always wins.
❤️
“Where could I go to escape from your Spirit or from your sight? If I were to climb up to the highest heavens, you would be there. If I were to dig down to the world of the dead you would also be there. Suppose I had wings like the dawning day and flew across the ocean. Even then your powerful arm would guide and protect me. Or suppose I said, “I’ll hide in the dark until night comes to cover me over.” But you see in the dark because daylight and dark are all the same to you.”
Psalms 139:7-12 CEV