The Far Side

As a kid, we would visit my Dad’s side of the family and I thought my uncle’s and aunt’s homes were far apart. We would take a short cut through the woods because it was so far walking on the main road. I remember visiting the same homes as an adult and walking along the road because I wanted to avoid areas where ticks were prevalent. Much to my surprise, the actual distance between the furthest two homes was probably way less than a mile. It wasn’t like they had moved any closer together, it was that my perception of the distance had changed.

It never ceases to amaze me how often people think they are so far apart. As divided as the US seems to be, we are not as far apart as we sometimes believe. It’s just from our perspective, the distance seems too great to ever be bridged. When you take the time to talk with someone, it’s surprising to discover that you’re not nearly as far apart as you believed. About 4 years ago, our family took a trip to New York City. We rented a Airbnb out in Brooklyn and took subway rides to tour the city. Our family is about as WASP-y (white Anglo-Saxon protestant) as possible and we were definitely in the minority in the area in which we were staying. One evening we had attended a play and then got dessert at Serendipity, the “famous” ice cream shop, so it was very late riding the subway back to our rental. Our stop was the last on the line so the car emptied out the further out we went. My wife, my two adult daughters, and myself shared the car with an African American woman and her two elementary aged daughters. The mom moved to the opposite side of the car perhaps because we were different from her. Both of my daughters relate well to kids and started talking with the girls. It wasn’t long before they were singing old Girl Scout songs and playing games together. The Mom relaxed and we began talking together. Their stop was the one before ours and her girls begged to stay on through ours. The Mom smiled, told her girls to say goodbye to their new friends, and then hoped that we would enjoy the rest of our trip. Both she and I discovered we may look different but we were not so far apart with the bond that my girls formed with hers.

Even as believers, we can sometimes think that we are far apart with different worship styles, music choices, which translation of the Bible along with a million other things but as long as we remember to keep Jesus the main thing the distance between us is not a big deal.

1 Corinthians 8:6

⁶ yet for us there is one God, the Father.
All things are from Him,
and we exist for Him.
And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ.
All things are through Him,
and we exist through Him.

Each Friday I participate in the FiveMinuteFriday.com challenge to write for 5 minutes on a prompt word. Today’s word is far. With apologies to Gary Larsen, I usually enjoyed his comic strip but sometimes I found the far side wasn’t nearly as far away as I thought.