Face to Face

Met with a friend this afternoon. Good guy. Knows what’s going on (reads this blog).

He wanted to buy me a cup of coffee and I’m cheap enough that I always jump at such an opportunity.

Seriously, he wanted to check on me, look me in the eyes as I talk, hear the timber of my voice, read my body language.

I really didn’t tell him anything new. How could I? I spill so much of what is going on into these electronic pages that I leave little more to add... except perhaps the look in my eyes, the timber of my voice, my body language.

He doesn’t give advice. Or if he does, it isn’t often. Usually he just listens; a trait that makes him a great conversationalist.

The words I pour through this digital portal has told him pretty much everything (though I sound far more clever when I write).

So, I didn’t really say much to my friend. Nothing new anyway. We talked a little about the prayer art I do. He finds my relief of having given away the ones I have accumulated odd. We talked a little about my circumstances. We talked a little about how I seem to process what I feel through writing.

Mostly we just sat at a very tiny table in a coffee shop named after an important character in an important work of American literature. Mostly we just did what friends do, see each other.

Well... actually he was watching me, I was too self-absorbed to ask the right questions about his own life and home. And, of course, I got a free coffee out of it. (Dude, I’ll pay ya back someday!)

I think that is why it is hard to pray sometimes. It seems a poor substitute to really talking to the One who loves me more than anyone else.

Wouldn’t it be great to really talk to God? Face to face? Moses asked to do that. God told him he couldn’t handle it.

I guess that was the point of Jesus, God in a form we could handle. Sort of. I think Jesus was a little too intense for a lot of folks even then.

I think that’s the reason for idols. Folks wanted a god they could see close up, even touch if they dared. Of course it wasn’t all the thrill they hoped it would be, having been made by human hands and all.

Well... this post was a little relief. I tire of talking about recent developments in the chaos I call home. It’s nice to go on a little literary walk about.

Just like it was nice to meet my friend at Starbucks. There wasn’t anything new about what we talked about, but the face to face thing was good.

I suppose that is what faith is all about. Faith is the internal certainty that the blog posts we call prayers will someday be something much more personal.