I saw the man driving past our house doing 40 with his phone up so it was visible to his eye as he drove and texted. I’ve never been to that level of texting and driving. And have given it up, really. What is it about us people that we really believe we can do more than one thing at a time?
I was talking to a friend and she kept glancing at her phone, tracking stuff that was coming in while we were talking. She was not present.
At one of my one-to-one visits with Erin Martin, our District Superintendent, she asked how I was doing; I began to sob. Okay, it was not my best day. Erin tuned in. She looked at me and was present. She handed me a box of kleenex and listened as I described the depth of loss my heart was feeling. And then she didn’t answer. Instead, she asked me a question which changed my life.
Presence. It makes all the difference. One of the most famous stories in the Bible talks about it eloquently. In fact in many quarters you need only name the sisters involved and people know the story. It is a story about many things, although it has been reduced as if to a single contrast too often. This Sunday, we are looking at it from the back door, from the underside, and looking at how Jesus was there for both these sisters and what his presence meant.
Don’t miss worship!