Google Joys

            On the Internet a few evenings back, I started thinking about friends from long ago.  And, yes, I googled them.  And, yes, I found them.

            Google people searches are currently my only detective outlet.  In elementary school, I was a big Trixie Belden fan.  I fancied myself a brave detective, an expert horsewoman, and a charming tomboy.  That is how caught up I was in the ever-expanding book series, believing fiction as truth.  You see, I was definitely not like Trixie. 

One time a friend and I decided to go play detective, largely because she had an amazing miniature camera.  We also carried pencils and memo pads.  We snuck up to an abandoned house.  She was ready to peer in the windows and click a few pictures (this was in the old days of film cartridges)—but I was extremely nervous.  What if someone saw us standing right by the house?  What if the police came and we got in trouble?  What if—horror of horrors—the house turned out to be occupied after all?

Every time I read a Trixie Belden book, I imagined myself galloping on my horse right alongside Trixie.  Except I didn’t have a horse.  Nor had I ridden one more than once—and that was a recalcitrant old trail horse that knew to walk slowly following the others and ignore whatever I tried with the reins.  (Actually, I tried nothing, because I was gripping the whatchamacallit thingy on the front of the saddle, terrified I might fall off.)  Interestingly enough, even after that single riding experience, I still imagined myself a terrific horsewoman, accompanying Trixie and friends on their countryside trail rides.

So, a detective and a horsewoman I was not.  Neither was I ever a tomboy, despite my inner identification with Trixie.  Timid is too weak a word to describe me as a child.  I didn’t swing high and I didn’t climb trees.  I was even scared of teeter-totters.  However, when I was 10 or 11, I had my shoulder-blade length blonde hair cut into a pixie and was delighted when a little child at the playground thought I was a boy.  Every Saturday morning I indulged my tomboy fantasy as well as my sweet tooth:  I woke up early and read in bed, devouring the current Trixie Belden book along with the special-flavor packages of Lifesavers that I hoarded in my room.

Now that I’ve established that I am neither tomboy nor horsewoman nor detective, I can return to Google.  And here is where I confess that this blog title is somewhat misleading, because there was a Google sorrow, too.

You see, there was this person I dated on and off in the 1970s, the “off” part mostly because he would periodically disappear and then eventually reappear.  (This was clearly a different era, before social media.)  Bob was a sweet guy despite his alcoholism, which I suspect had something to do with a tour of duty in Vietnam.  Now and then I get a twinge of nostalgia and wonder what ever became of him.  So I did a Google search and employed my best detective skills.  I was sad to discover that he died nine years ago.  That set me back a bit.

Hoping for a better outcome, I started another search because Bob’s last name reminded me of a college friend’s last name.  This time I hit pay dirt.  There she was, the pastor of a United Methodist Church in Illinois.  I read through the church website, knowing she must be a wonderful pastor and happily noting that her sermons are available to listen to online.

There must be a way to wrap up these ramblings so it at least appears that I had a point in mind when I started writing.  To be honest, I didn’t.  I was just following the trail of a title that popped into my mind:  “Google Joys.”  About a paragraph ago, I suddenly realized that the title was more descriptive than I had thought.  Take the “s” off “Joys” and you have the first name of my college friend.  I guess I have some detective skills after all:  I figured out how to finish this post.

The Rest of the Story

          The email came while I was visiting family and friends in Washington:  would I preach on August 10?  At first I thought no, and then I reconsidered and said yes.  At Whidbey Presbyterian Church on July 20, I mentioned the request to my former pastor.  His immediate response, given with a smile, was “what’s your topic?”  I didn’t know.

          Returning home to a whirlwind of activity, I still didn’t know.  Should I pull an old sermon from my files and rework it?  The question nagged at the back of my mind, and I started praying about it:  “God, what do You want me to talk about?” 

          Listening to the sermon at Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church on the 27th, I started to get an answer.  Jonah’s unforgiving attitude toward the Ninevites caught my attention.  It reminded me of a novel I had finished reading the day before.  In part, the story was about a character’s anger and bitterness concerning an injustice done to him.  He was stuck in past pain because he refused to forgive.   Hmmm.

I love a good story.  I’ve learned over the years that my seemingly random choice of reading materials often becomes an avenue for God to communicate timely truths to me.  So I should not have been surprised when I started to read the second library book I had checked out the week before:  it, too, contained a subtext concerning unforgiveness.

Okay, so there was the topic, delivered to me via sermon, a Cape Light novel, and a Terri Blackstock mystery.  The next step was easy:  look in the topical files I started to keep close to twenty years ago and see what there was in the forgiveness folder.  I found plenty of notes from various books.

I kept praying and pondering, chose a scripture text, and then started writing.  Draft one was followed by revision one a couple days later.  On August 4, I checked the Whidbey Presbyterian Church website as I do most Mondays and saw that the pastor’s sermon was up from the day before.  To my surprise, his text was Matthew 18: 21-35, the same text I had chosen.  Sure enough, listening to that sermon gave me just the insight I didn’t know I needed for the first part of my sermon.

All that remains now (today is August 7) is to preach it.  No matter how well or how poorly that goes, I am deeply grateful that God spoke to me through two sermons and two novels to identify and confirm a message that we all need to hear:  God forgives and so must we.