Dots Interesting

Dots Interesting by debgrant

• I enjoy the NYT game Connections. A little daily challenge to take 16 seemingly random words and find connections - 4 sets of four. I like to feel the synapses of my brain stretching without worrying about failure. Oh, sure, failure is possible but a new game comes in the morning. I challenged a friend online to a little Connections competition for a week, best of 7. It was fun. It changed the game a bit to know the stakes of failure were higher. It would cost me the beverage of the winner’s choice. It was fun to be connected to another dot if only for a little while. I lost the week’s competition. I won the joy of the connections.

• Occupation hazard #1: Though a retired pulpit jockey, I still find metaphors for sermon illustrations in random sights. Today, a flock of ibises on a neighbor’s roof gathered in the morning sun until one floated to the ground for breakfast. The others joined in one by one. Connected by species, by slender legs, funny beak, separate and together. And so are we. Funny beaks and all.

• Occupational hazard #2: As I have listened to folks throughout the years, I have a tendency….for good or for ill…to find connections in pieces of their issues that they may not be aware of. I draw a connect-the-dots picture. Sometimes it is enlightening. Sometimes annoying. Sometimes conspiratorial - making connections that just don’t exist anywhere but in my twisted imagination. I thought it was my responsibility to hold up a mirror to a person to see how I saw what was going on. I thought that until someone I really respect told me one day “Ya know, Deb, not everyone wants to look at that mirror.” That’s why this occupational habit is called a hazard.

• There was a mixer game we used to play at retreat gatherings. The object was to find a few things the whole group had in common. Like my morning flock of ibises, the answers were often physical or geographical in nature. Divide the group into smaller groups and push for different answers that could only happen with deeper conversations. Finding the dots that were less visible to connect. A person who lost a spouse recently discovers another who lost a spouse recently. They are instantly connected in grief - a dot that looms large as they both navigate in their own way to rearrange their internal furniture to give it room to exist without becoming the only dot in the room.

• The pull to make connections continues to be strong in me. I imagine it is the Spirit’s way of keeping me from getting lost. To be connected to others keeps me from becoming a paranoid conspiracy theorist who sucks up too much oxygen these days. I’d like to imagine my dot in the scheme of things is part of a vast, connected, and truly beautiful tapestry. I may not have the perspective I need to see it yet, but I enjoy believing that everything is connected including me and it is not all bad.

Blessings to all the ELOGOS readers connected via this magical space,

deb