Skip to main content

The Woman in the Box

Counters
Occasionally I have heard it said that having a relationship with another person outside of a marriage has actually enhanced the marriage. I have never believed that.

However, I truly believe that my marriage to Sally has been enhanced during this trip by my developing love for a dusky voiced American lady, called Maggie, or Magellan Maestro to give her her full name. She happens to be imprisoned in a small electronic box and tells me where to go when I am trying to navigate my way around this strange place where people drive on the wrong side of the road (Although I definitely have the easier part of the deal in this exchange... I only have to cope with driving on the wrong side of the road... Geoff has to drive on the other side of the road, use a manual car instead of an automatic, and must cope with the shock of our petrol prices!). She is the electronic voice of the Satnav (or GPS as they call it here)which a couple called Laurie and Ed Bawden have leant us for the duration of our stay. I have fallen so much in love with this piece of gadgetry that I may invest in one when I return to GB... It may ultimately prevent irretrievable marital breakdown between myself and Sally, who has many, many gifts and graces but map-reading an a sense of direction are not among them. And given that patience with others under pressure is not one of my virtues, it is perhaps best that I am ordered around in the car by an electronic woman... She keeps calmly recalculating the route when I blithely cruise by the exit she instructed me to take, although last night I nearly pulled her cable out and threw her out the window because she was insisting that I should turn right into a road that was closed off for construction... But far better that I should consider doing that to a machine than to my wife... Better still that I calm down and don't consider doing it at all.

But more and more we find ourselves dependent upon technology... I have had internet glitches both at the parsonage where we are staying and at the church office over recent days, and I have wasted an inordinate amount of time trying to sort out the respective problems... with the help of a nice AT&T man and the local internet whizz Eric Thomasma respectively... Not only do I wonder at times whether these electronic gizmos really make things simpler or a lot more complicated... But I (and most other people I know) continue to be seduced by them... We just need to make sure who is boss...

On a similar theme... Faith UMC here in Grand Rapids has stepped boldly into the world of virtual reality with their own website at http://www.grfaithumc.org/. Check it out.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Woman of no Distinction

Don't often post other people's stuff here... But I found this so powerful that I thought I should. It's a performance poem based on John 4: 4-30, and I have attached the original YouTube video below. A word for women, and men, everywhere... "to be known is to be loved, and to be loved is to be known." I am a woman of no distinction of little importance. I am a women of no reputation save that which is bad. You whisper as I pass by and cast judgmental glances, Though you don’t really take the time to look at me, Or even get to know me. For to be known is to be loved, And to be loved is to be known. Otherwise what’s the point in doing either one of them in the first place? I WANT TO BE KNOWN. I want someone to look at my face And not just see two eyes, a nose, a mouth and two ears; But to see all that I am, and could be all my hopes, loves and fears. But that’s too much to hope for, to wish for, or pray for So I don’t, not anymore. Now I keep to myself And by that
2 comments
Read more

Psalm for Harvest Sunday

A short responsive psalm for us as a call to worship on Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday, and given that it was pouring with rain as I headed into church this morning the first line is an important remembrance that the rain we moan about is an important component of the fruitfulness of the land we live in: You tend the land and water it And the earth produces its abundance. You crown each year with your bounty, and our storehouses overflow with your goodness. The mountain meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are filled with corn; Your people celebrate your boundless grace They shout for joy and sing. from Psalm 65
3 comments
Read more

Anointed

There has been a lot of chatter on social media among some of my colleagues and others about the liturgical and socio-political niceties of Saturday's coronation and attendant festivities, especially the shielding of the anointing with the pictured spoon - the oldest and perhaps strangest of the coronation artefacts. Personally I thought that was at least an improvement on the cloth of gold canopy used in the previous coronation, but (pointless) debates are raging as to whether this is an ancient practice or was simply introduced in the previous service to shield the Queen from the TV cameras, not for purposes of sacredness, but understandable coyness, if she actually had to bare her breast bone in puritan 1950s Britain. But as any church leader knows, anything performed twice in a church becomes a tradition. All this goes to show that I did actually watch it, while doing other things - the whole shooting match from the pre-service concert with yer wumman in that lemon-
2 comments
Read more