Transcendence

 

I really hate technology, I complained to Doug. Missing the irony. He was sitting at his computer in Brisbane, accessing my laptop in Scotland in order to sort out a mess I had got into with Skype. Monday was over for him, nearly. For me, it was just beginning. Doug could take control, search out the problem, find the solution and fix it from half a world away.

For that level of technology, I am totally grateful. (I am even more grateful for that depth of love and patience.)

So, to be more precise, I should have said I really hate technology when it goes wrong. Largely due to my own ignorance when I key in the wrong information and descend deeper into the murky madness that ensues. When I have to raise my hand, yet again, and cry ‘help’, and know that someone I love half a world away will carve out an hour or two at the end of a busy day to enable me to call my Mom.

Life is terrible, says a friend of ours from Ukraine. His circumstances are twisted and troubled and – yes – terrible. I want to suggest to him though that no, life is not terrible but incredible, though his current experience of it is indeed terrible. He is caught in a tangled web not of his making. But I will not protest that life is beautiful, because I am sitting comfortably, with problems and situations that do exercise my mind and make me anxious but which are small potatoes compared to his. For me to correct his perspective would be harsh and uncaring.

So instead, in faith, I put up my hand, yet again, and cry ‘help’, knowing that someone I love and who has loved me from all eternity will hear my prayer and answer.

What would Jesus say?

‘I came that they might have life, and life to the full.’

May the Lord bless, encourage and envelop in his love all those for whom this day is truly terrible. May I be open and available to serve, offering whatever I can to alleviate suffering. And ultimately, in that offering, may others experience the love of Jesus and receive that new level of life, life to the full, which stretches not just across the miles, but transcends dimensions, space and time.