It’s been a year since I got to join my husband on his first field trip to England. He’s just gone again and returned, and of course, this meant pulling out old pictures and reminiscing (not at all jealous!) One of the funny moments we still laugh about was an afternoon in Oxford when we planned to meet at the Radcliffe Camera, a perfectly round building in the middle of the Oxford campus. He’d been working away for hours deep in the library stacks while I gallivanted around town, and we figured this landmark building was distinctive enough to easily find. Yeah. This is how that went:
Michael: Kate, I’m here!
me: Me, too! Where are you?
Michael: Right out front.
me: I don’t see you!
Michael: See that clump of people with the umbrellas?
me: Yes…
Michael: I’m right behind them!
me: Hmm. Maybe I’m on the opposite side. I’ll walk around again.
Michael: How can you not see me? I am right out front! Are you sure you’re at the right building?
me: Yes, I’m sure! The round one, right? The Radcliffe Camera?
Michael: Yes, the round one. I’m sure I would have seen you go by. I’ve been here a long time!
me: Well, I’ve just gone around again and I don’t see you.
Michael: Hang on… Um, I think I see the problem.
Apparently there is more than one round building on the Oxford campus. Or at least, more than one that appears to be round from the front.
But as I remembered our Oxford Twilight Zone moment recently (as we relived it in the Denver International Airport– “Baggage claim 3? I’m at Baggage Claim 3!”) it made me wonder how many of our quarrels are a little… absurd.
How often do we argue about perceptions that turn out to be wrong… or race out on a limb based on assumptions that may or may not prove true… or go to battle because we mean different things when we use the same vocabulary?
Can you imagine Jesus tweeting about rumors of conflict between Pilate and his wife or Caesar’s latest snafu? I have a feeling Jesus’ tweets would be a little less hasty. A little less… slimy.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit. #beatitude”
Bless his heart. He’s never going to trend, or grow a platform, at that rate.
So go ahead, have an opinion about the latest hot topic scandal. But think twice before you broadcast your peevish thoughts to the world. Might turn out that things aren’t what they seem.
Catherine's Letters 
Catherine: What a neat change of pace. We’ve all been there, and in today’s Twitterverse, it is important for people to remember not to shoot from the hip. Unfortunately, words on the web are only slightly less eternal than our eternal life in Christ.
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