It was a busy Saturday morning in the busy village vicarage. The busy village priest was busily preparing for the following busy day – and dealing with the consequences of a significant death in the parish, the preceding week’s numerous hospital and pastoral visits; and preparing to go away for a few days. (All that and more in part-time hours.)
Meanwhile, the not quite as busy vicar’s husband was shopping with his brother-in-law, for whom we are registered carers. Driving in to the supermarket car park, my mobile rang: ‘The internet’s gone down. And the phone.’
Now, Jane is not, by her own admission, IT confident but she had switched off and switched everything on again – the usual trustworthy method of restoring normality and sanity. But no. Nothing.
Returning home, I did the same – several times. Unplugging cables. Plugging them in again. Still nothing. A check on my smartphone revealed a major outage caused by someone digging a hole 130 miles away – and a bank holiday weekend at that.
Fast forward a few days, and on returning home, with outage resolved and at our neighbour’s too – there was still nothing.
I speak to Rebecca on the provider’s Support Team. ‘Let’s run some checks,’ she says wisely. I tell her what lights are on and what cables are plugged in.
‘Sorry, could you repeat that question?’ I ask.
Rebecca tells me which cable should be where.
‘Ah.’
‘Don’t worry, easy mistake, it happens all the time,’ she responds graciously to my admission of error.
Moments later the trustworthy blue light is on and the phone connects once more. Normality and sanity, of sorts, is restored.
It’s easy to get crossed wires. Like the person who wanted one of my books (a much more rare event than many may think – most authors are not best sellers). I waited for her payment. She waited for the book before sending it. An easy mistake, a case of crossed wires.
Such misunderstandings are common in life, aren’t they: ‘I thought you were going to do that.’ ‘Oh, so that’s what you meant, is it…?’
Our experience of life can also skew the way we both communicate to others and interpret what we receive. For example, if we’ve been bullied in the past then we might receive what others say as being a potential threat – even if it’s not. Or if, like me, much of life has been spent with people who have health issues, there’s a danger of trying to read every act or behaviour as symptomatic of a medical condition – even if it’s not.
I’m sure you can think of your own examples of how crossed wires, misinterpretations or poor communication caused a loss of normality and sanity.
Such times can have a significant impact on how we feel about other people and how others feel about us. ‘Did you really think I meant that…?’ we might say or think on hearing about some crossed wires or misunderstanding. ‘Do you really not know me that well?’
The same is true of God, of course. It’s worth thinking about the ways in which we have crossed wires in our understanding, connection and communication with God.
Our experience of life and other people (and the church, it has to be said) can have a significant impact on how we feel about God and what we think God feels about us. If we believe that people are made in God’s image then God’s got a pretty raw deal from some people!
And yet how often do we misunderstand God. How often is our image of God’s love and gentleness skewed. And how often, I wonder, does God, with all that love and gentleness towards each one of us, think ‘Did you really think I meant that…? Do you really not know me that well?’
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Details of my books can be found at richardfrostauthor.com.