talking

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Familiarity Breeds The Strongest Of Connections

Familiarity brings out the desire to connect. Have you ever noticed that in your life?

familiarity breeds the strongest of connections

I have, in fact, just this morning. I witnessed two strangers connect over something that was familiar to both of them.

Maybe there is some kind of bond that is created with familiarity, an invisible string that ties our hearts together with one another. 

When you think about it, familiarity warms our hearts. 

If we hear a song on the radio that we knew from long ago, often there is a noted smile that crosses our faces. We put our attention to it. We remember places and people who also shared that song with us. 

This connection is so strong that we can picture a place in the past where we heard that song. Our mood may have been flat or even down, but a familiar song changes that in an instant. 

And for at least the length of that song, our mood has brightened. 

Just being in the same room as someone we have known in the past can change how we talk, how we relate; we can even become more animated.

I know this is true when I get with the guys I went to high school with. Though we are all grown men, we start relating and acting and talking like we did back in high school.

That’s the kind of thing familiarity does. That invisible thread gets tied to each other’s hearts and we don’t go back in time, but the past somehow get injected into how we interact with each other. 

It really is an amazing thing. 

This morning at hockey there were two guys in the dressing room who didn’t know each other. They had never met before, except for seeing each other skating around the ice. But this morning they were changing in the same room.

One of the guys had a tattoo of Newfoundland over his heart.

I had noticed it, but didn’t say anything. I just figured he was from there, or it was a special place to him. 

But another guy across the room noticed the tattoo and spoke up.  

“You from Newfoundland?” he asked. And the tattooed guy responded, “Yes I am.” 

What transpired next was pretty amazing. It was that familiarity at work.

They went from complete strangers to being deeply connected to each other. 

Somehow, though being from different places on “the Rock”, they not only knew things about where each other was from, but they knew some of the same people.

The room might as well have been empty of other people because all they did was banter back and forth about their homeland. 

The more they talked, the thicker and thicker their accents got as they connected more deeply. 

They left the room together and when I finally emerged from the dressing room, they were still engaged in conversation beside the rink. 

I made my way out to my car, got my hockey bag into the trunk, and started to pull out of my parking spot. 

These two were now in the parking lot … still engaged in conversation. 

They may never leave each other’s company.

Here’s the thing: I’ve been reading through the Bible each year for the past 25 years. There is now a familiarity with it that draws me to it and warms my heart to it each day as I read. Daily read God’s word to develop a familiarity that connects you to God.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What connection do you have with God’s word? Leave your comments and questions below.

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My Car’s Been Talking To Me

Car maintenance has never been my strong suit. I have not always even been successful at making sure I had gas in the tank to keep my cars rolling – my dad used to call this practice “driving on fumes”.

car on hoist

It takes discipline to keep an automobile in good shape and I’m not even that disciplined at getting regular oil changes … “regular” for me is between 5,000 – 12,000 kilometres, or every three to five months.

I have a neighbour who faithfully washes his cars in his driveway. If I can take my car through the carwash at the gas station a couple of times a year I’m doing good.

That’s what we have rain for, isn’t it? I figure rain is nature doing its thing, helping the grass grow, making the leaves shine, and bringing back the glimmer to the cars on the road.

I am also not good at getting the mechanical parts of the car taken care of. Since the fall I’ve had a little rattle in the front end. I know what it is; I’ve had it before.

I need a new link kit. Now, I can’t really tell you what a link kit looks like or exactly what it does, but it has something to do with stopping that sound my car makes when I drive over a pot hole, or an uneven surface.

This link kit may even be instrumental in maintaining connection between my front wheel and the car, because now that it is long past the fall, my wife is telling me that she fears the wheel is going to come off some time when she’s driving.

Though it’s true that any mechanical failure that could happen to the car will happen when she’s driving, I’m not positive but I don’t think the wheel is going to come off.

Still I need to “put a man on it”, and get this work done on the car.

It used to be easier to do this kind of thing. I would book an appointment and Lily would shuttle me in our other car. It was that simple.

That process is not as easy right now. Our son has our other car most of the time so I need to coordinate with his schedule which seems to be rather full and unpredictable.

I just haven’t made an attempt to figure out a time.

And while all this nothing has been going on, the roads in Kingston (that were once paved with gold but now need some gold plating work) are really making my car sound worse and worse.

Lily is amazed that I’ve been able to put up with the sound for so long, but I just turn up the radio a little louder.

OK!  . . .  I’m going to make an appointment today to take my car in.

Here’s the thing: There are things you know you should do. Maybe God revealed something to you in prayer, and then you read something in the Bible that challenged you in the same area.  You may have even had other people in your life speak to you about that very thing. But there’s that sound, it’s getting louder but you’re not doing anything about it. Don’t put it off any longer. Decide today, right now, and begin to address that something that God wants you to work on.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you been putting off that you need to do today? Leave your comment below.

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When Silence Isn’t Golden

They say that silence is golden – at least I remember hearing that phrase in a song way back in the sixties. I’m not sure it’s true in every situation.

silence

In our world we are surrounded by so many sounds that having some peace and quiet can be a real treat for a change.

But there is always noise … It’s early morning as I’m writing this and though it’s peaceful and quiet, there is still the hum of the refrigerator that just came on a few seconds ago, and the tick tock of the battery-operated clock hanging on the wall just a few short feet from me.

Even if I went outside there are birds chirping, leaves rustling, or even the noise of cars travelling down a distant roadway.

There is always some noise, a voice of some kind that breaks our silence. And maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe complete silence would drive us crazy.

We’d be left alone with our thoughts.

I know that when I get in my car, the first thing I do after starting the car is hit the button on the radio to get some music. Some people just like to have noise, music, talking, whatever alway in the background – radio always on; TV on in another room.

Some people just talk . . . and they never stop. That’s good at times for a person like me who doesn’t have too much to say. Even if the person talking isn’t saying anything interesting, at least it serves as white noise to drown out the silence.

But there are times when I like it quiet. There are times I need it quiet. My mind works better when it’s not distracted by noise around me. I can think clearly, focus more singularly. Its golden.

Then other times silence isn’t golden. Like when you are talking and the person you are talking to isn’t responding.

I’ve had that happen to me on the phone. I was telling a friend important information and during my explanation we were cut off. I’m not sure how long I talked for before I realized there was no one even listening to me, but it was a weird feeling. I had to call back and start over.

There are times when I’ve talked to people who can’t talk back. People in the hospital, at times, are unable to respond or even indicate that they hear what you are saying to them. It’s hard to keep talking in those situations.

There are people who, when they get mad, get silent. And you can talk to them until you’re blue, but they don’t say anything in return. That’s got to be tough. It’s certainly not golden.

In these situations, silence doesn’t help or even solve anything. You really have to talk through them. What’s really golden is knowing when to talk and when to be silent.

Here’s the thing: There are times when we talk to God and it’s as though He isn’t listening.  There just seems to be no response from Him at all. You can plead, beg, even cry out in frustration but still nothing from God in return. At those silent times the temptation is to stop talking to God, to bury your thoughts, worries, frustrations, discouragements and leave God alone in silence.

But that doesn’t solve anything. We need to keep talking to God, keep bringing our thoughts, our needs or hopes to Him, for out of that silence, at some point, God will answer. And that will be golden.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How long have you gone in silence with God? Leave your comment below.