Hanging Up
She was not understanding me. I wanted to change an existing gift subscription, as allowed by this publisher, to a different child’s magazine. She did that, and then told me it would expire in April. But, I said, the existing subscription was to expire in September; why is it now cut short to April? We repeated, each what we had said, but in louder voices. I then said, let’s just forget all about it and go back to what we had. She said fine. And it would expire in May. Why not September, I asked; “Online, as I look at it right now, it says September.” She said it takes a few days for the online to catch up. But ... I’m starting to sputter ... this doesn’t make sense: it was September a few days ago, why isn’t it September now?
She kept repeating. I hung up.
---
An ordinary event, in many respects, and not uncommon. I have been amused for years at the way we humans, when we’re failing to communicate, tend to repeat the same words but at higher volume. “Just saying it louder doesn’t make it true,” I have said. Yet here I was, self-trapped in a circle of escalating decibels.
---
The story of the flood and Noah can be read as a story of God deciding to hang up on us. He had had enough; he would take Noah, erase everything else, and start again.
The story of Christmas is the opposite. When he enfleshes his Word, God decides to hang in with us. That’s the good news of Christmas: God has not and will not hang up on us.
---
And I’m not hanging up on you, but I am taking off a couple of weeks. The next post will be about a week after New Year’s.
---
Out & About. This Sunday, December 22, I am to preach at Incarnation in Dallas at the traditional services (7:30, 9, and 11:15 a.m.). My sermon title: “ ‘Rejoice always.’ Really?”
Many people have mentioned their enjoyment—some re-reading it after years, others for the first time—of A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter Miller. If you haven’t read it, may I commend it again? I find it full of hard-won Christian insight, and, in perilous times, deeply hopeful. And if you read it by Sunday, January 26, you’re welcome to join the “Good Books & Good Talk” seminar on it, 6 to 7:30 p.m., at Incarnation in Dallas.