Connections

When I was a child, I was entranced by the notion of pioneer times.  I thought I would have liked the adventure of being a pioneer.  There are a lot of reasons I recognize now that I would not have adapted well to that kind of experience.  Being cut-off from easy communication would have been my downfall.  No phones!  No email! No Facebook!  No internet!  Now some people would say, that would suit them fine.  Certainly, the plethora of modern communication does become burdensome and unplugging periodically seems to serve our health.  And yet….

I think of a long-lost friend who tracked me down through an old phone number she got through my high school alumni association.  I recall a phone call I received once as I was just about to walk out of the office at the church I was pastoring in Florida, the caller having somehow gleaned from the internet that I was there.  She had been a client of my husband Terry when she was a teenager and just wanted to convey how well her adult life was going and to thank him.  And last week I discovered someone had left a message on my blog, yet another former client in search of Terry.  These kinds of connections strike me almost like wizardry.

People have applauded us for uprooting ourselves at this stage in our lives to move to Montana, trekking like modern day pioneers to a place where we had no established connections.  And, indeed, this was an adventurous thing to do, when staying put would have been the more reasonable course to take.  But I honestly don’t know how well we would be able to live with this choice were it not for zoom.  This morning we will zoom with a group back home, and again this evening with another group of home folks.  These are weekly rituals.  This is not to say we aren’t making new friends.  But the former ties sustain us.

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus: Connection:  The energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard and valued; when they can give and receive without judgement; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.— Brene Brown