Making Connection
This Sunday we'll be talking about connectedness.
Scott Phillips is a great singer/songwriter - and I highly recommend his newest album (I believe I've said that before here...lemme check...yep...) so go to iTunes and get Next Stop Willoughby or check out http://www.scottphillips.com/ . One of my favorite songs on the album is called "It All Comes Down" and it's about connectedness - or the lack thereof:
I'm kind of a man between two worlds right now (I feel a bit like John Carter*). Everyone who really knows me is 150 miles away - those who are physically closest to me right now (except Lori and the girls, of course) really don't know me in any significant ways. No, I don't expect different after 10 days in a new place, but it's still a little...uncomfortable.
Yet, I'm complicit, too...
Saturday, my mom called. I was in Giant Eagle and talking to someone, so I kind of cut the conversation with my mom short, saying that I'd call her back. Of course things got busy...and I forgot to call.
I had a message from a really good friend on my voicemail... I missed his call and have to call him back. Time was when he might just drop into my office...
It's been a real blessing that people here are already starting to make connection with us. I've been in conversations about kids and colleges and life experiences with a half dozen people who have just walked up and shook my hand and started a conversation seeking opportunity to talk about something deeper than the weather and how many boxes I have left to unpack (oh, I'd say about 40...or so...)
It's easier and safer not to go deeper - to be open is to be vulnerable. But...to be human is to be vulnerable, I think. We NEED the connection, we NEED to care for others and to be cared for. We are incomplete alone.
So, please, ask how the unpacking is going - but please, don't stop there. Let's get a cup of coffee and really talk...
*No, not John Carter the doctor on ER, but this John Carter from the very first ERB Mars book - escaping natives in South America and waking up on Mars... Yeah, I'm a geek - get over it... :)
Scott Phillips is a great singer/songwriter - and I highly recommend his newest album (I believe I've said that before here...lemme check...yep...) so go to iTunes and get Next Stop Willoughby or check out http://www.scottphillips.com/ . One of my favorite songs on the album is called "It All Comes Down" and it's about connectedness - or the lack thereof:
It All Comes Down
Well I’m up and I’m down and I’m all around
But I’m okay if you ask me
‘Cause we don’t really have the time to care like we could
I could trip, I could fall, you won’t know at all
‘Cause your busyness is blinding
And we don’t really take the time to love like we should
Chorus:And it always comes back down
To the way that we love
And it always comes back down
To the way that we love
I’m in a hurry to grow, to grow up so fast
Just to miss my youth and to chase my past
If I keep looking forward to the day that my ship comes inI
’m gonna work my life away, only to leave this world
Empty handed, empty handed
I'm kind of a man between two worlds right now (I feel a bit like John Carter*). Everyone who really knows me is 150 miles away - those who are physically closest to me right now (except Lori and the girls, of course) really don't know me in any significant ways. No, I don't expect different after 10 days in a new place, but it's still a little...uncomfortable.
Yet, I'm complicit, too...
Saturday, my mom called. I was in Giant Eagle and talking to someone, so I kind of cut the conversation with my mom short, saying that I'd call her back. Of course things got busy...and I forgot to call.
I had a message from a really good friend on my voicemail... I missed his call and have to call him back. Time was when he might just drop into my office...
It's been a real blessing that people here are already starting to make connection with us. I've been in conversations about kids and colleges and life experiences with a half dozen people who have just walked up and shook my hand and started a conversation seeking opportunity to talk about something deeper than the weather and how many boxes I have left to unpack (oh, I'd say about 40...or so...)
It's easier and safer not to go deeper - to be open is to be vulnerable. But...to be human is to be vulnerable, I think. We NEED the connection, we NEED to care for others and to be cared for. We are incomplete alone.
So, please, ask how the unpacking is going - but please, don't stop there. Let's get a cup of coffee and really talk...
*No, not John Carter the doctor on ER, but this John Carter from the very first ERB Mars book - escaping natives in South America and waking up on Mars... Yeah, I'm a geek - get over it... :)
Comments
I am anxious to meet you!
Barb
(Greg Cox's FAVORITE sister)