Sunday Evening Popcorn

Paul and I are married to each other.

We both have laptops.

We both scroll through Facebook and news sites.

Thus far, it seems we are similar.

Once in a while, such as when we're on a plane, I sit beside him when he's online, and I watch what he clicks on and reads. That's when I realize how completely different we are.

Looking over on his screen, I'll see a catchy headline: "Missing Iowa Child Found In Cornfield After 28 Hours."

I think CLICK ON THAT.

He doesn't.

Next comes ONLY 1% OF AMERICANS CAN PASS THIS HISTORY TEST.

I think: clickbait and silly. He opens it, passes the quiz, and is pleased.

Next there's something super-interesting like Nova Scotia Grandma Discovers Ancient Pirate Treasure While Digging Potatoes in Garden.

Oh my stars. We must read this, I think.

He scrolls by and clicks on something inane involving Mueller testifying, the Blazers winning, the football draft picks, or Trump tweeting something.

I read about the British royals. Oooooh, pictures of Prince Louis!

He certainly does not.

However, I'm happy to say that I've found a few ways we are similar. We both click and read things involving plane crashes, big snakes in the Everglades, college costs, and the Amish.

And we both don't read about entertainment celebrities and music and movies.

The experts say that yes, opposites attract, but they also have to work a lot harder at making the marriage work. We are opposite in many ways and marriage has required a lot of hard work, but at least we can always talk about the latest article we both read about plane crashes, pythons, student debt, or the growing Amish population.

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Ben and Amy sang in the Riverside Community Choir, which presented its final program for the season this evening.

"Somebody should do a livestream," I said.

Well. You know how it goes when you say out loud that "someone" should do something?

Yes, that is exactly what happened.

Jenny and I got to church at 5:39, and already the parking lot was full and people were parking on the grass. We rushed to the balcony to set up. I couldn't connect to wifi because the information was on the router, locked in the office, and Paul wasn't there yet with the key.

So I did the best I could with what I had as the church filled, the foyer filled, and the balcony filled. Partway through the evening, my battery was dying. I'd forgotten to plug in the phone. So we handed a long cord back and around, and a nice person plugged it in over by the Sunday school supplies.

"I am too old for this," I told Hope Krabill afterwards. She is my age. "No!" she said. "Don't say that! We can still learn to do things!"

"Yes. Growth mindset." I said, and added, "Please tell me I'm allowed to make mistakes."

She emphatically said I was. The video is imperfect but it will be viewable by David the soloist's parents in Grenada, and that sort of thing is why I made the attempt.

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I think it was last year when I wrote for Daughters of Promise about change and identity. With each new phase, we think, "Who am I now?"

If you even try to be a writer, please know that you will be tested and tried in every area you write about, especially if you sound like you have it figured out.

Somehow I got to discussing the change/identity subject with a woman who came to the concert this evening. The changes in her life involved marriage, moving, and a baby, all about 15 years later than her peers experienced these transitions. Mine, recently, involve no longer writing for the newspaper and, as a result, not getting as many speaking invitations, which has left me feeling strangely at loose ends.

"We know our identity is in Christ," she said. "But still..."

I agreed.

Christian women tend to overdo the identity topic, I think, but maybe it's because we are so defined by what we take care of , which keeps changing, so we're forever trying to adapt to a new phase of life and trying to figure out who we are now.

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My friend Judy and I got married the same summer and lived in the same town for the next two years. We endured morning sickness at the same time and had our baby boys three weeks apart.

Then our paths parted. But whenever I see her, we eliminate the conversational fluff and go right to the heart.  One time she happened to be at church and we talked briefly and intensely afterward. Her daughter walked up to us. "Really, Mom? Five minutes with Dorcas and already you're crying?"

Well, yes.

Today we met again because a young man who is a nephew of both her husband and mine was baptized. She had great and immediate clarity about what I should do about my biggest life issues, and I had great and immediate clarity with hers.

When you sit together in a car during a church service and eat crackers so you don't throw up, you form this sort of bond.

You should try it.

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Have a wonderful week.