4,000 Neighbors And Me

Good morning…

Four thousand neighbors struggle with me through an internet outage. We have been without service for about thirty-six hours, thus no blog post this morning. No internet also means no TV, no email, none of the normal communications I usually take for granted. An insight sparks as I sit at Starbucks at 8:30 pm, writing. Our final scripture verse in our last blog was this: On a good day, enjoy yourself; on a bad day, examine your conscience. God arranges for both kinds of days so that we won’t take anything for granted (Ecclesiastes 7:14, MSG).

I must admit, I take my internet connection for granted. Much of my life depends upon it. Yet instead of watching TV, last night Steve and I extended our daily happy hour debrief, outside, beneath our back porch. Then after feeding off the familiarity of the pizza place up the street, we climbed in bed. Resting in silence, side by side, he read and I created the Soul Collage card above. Look at it closely, what do you see, sense, surmise?

I thought we would have service when I woke in the middle of the night. But no. No internet. Still. Instead, I created three more soulful cards, two representing the teamwork needed to glide smoothly through deep water together and the light sparked as God hems us in and we recommit ourselves to love every day. The third is the mirror image of a middle aged woman like me, lifting her eyes to rise up from the reflection of her childhood roots. Centered beneath God’s warm outpouring, her soul is sparked, emanating light. Creating these cards in the middle of the night invites my soul to rise up, to shine.