It matters little to the overall shape of things in the world that I know barnacles stand on their heads and eat with their feet. But I can tell you that it makes a great difference to me when I stoop at ocean’s edge and see them feed. What a delightful moment. Pleasure is immediate when I watch their fern-like feet search the shallow water for food. I feel like God has let me in on a private joke. I am glad I learned about barnacles.

Why is it so hard to listen to others? What is it we are doing while others speak? We are talking to ourselves, practicing signals. I call it, “self-checking.” Self-checking is a preoccupation by which we assure ourselves that we are who we thought we were when we last checked. Children are great at it, till they grow aware of observers. Their open fascination with reflected images of themselves delights us all. Adults are nothing short of comedic in their discreet attempts of self-checking. 

I did some minor manuscript editing for a friend. She writes of a young couple that anticipated adoption of a foster child they cared for since its birth. By a cruel twist of judiciary processes, they lost the child and any hope of adoption. Their sorrow was beyond consolation. Consolation was poor. My friend asked the woman, “How do you wish people had responded to you in this crisis?

This is a true story and fitting, though perhaps not genteel. It began, “Charles Ray, are you listening to me?!”

That was my mother’s voice in the kitchen speaking harshly to my eleven-year-old big brother who was in some sort of trouble. His answer was “No, I’m listening to Granny.”

Being real in the modern era requires living in but against technology. Saying that, I acknowledge the influence of French thinker, Jacques Ellul. In the small book, Perspectives on Our Age ,he shows that technology is more than a phenomenon; it is a point of view. The undergirding of this strong assertion is this? Technology, he says, suppresses the subject. Right. That is, people are subjects. Things created by technology are objects. Imagine the surprise then, when we realize that objects meant to free us from dreaded or difficult tasks have, in fact, become the merciless managers of people and their purposes. 

When it comes to valuing others, surely it was more easily done when people lived in isolated villages, knew a small community well, and worried only to the edges of a square mile or two. That was enough.

To function well in our crowded world we need to know things about people. But we have little time, thank you, for discovery questions. So what a relief to learn that lingering is unnecessary to the process of collecting pertinent information. Efficiency rescues us. We have labels. Labels reproduce faster than rabbits or house cats, they insinuate content and they clarify such tings as duty, power, authority or lack of, income brackets, skills, limitations, intelligence, talents, or education. They swiftly provide pertinent information. 

Sometimes my journal is kept well, sometimes poorly. In it I frequently note my setting, like noticing the antics of a cocky blue jay I see outside now as I write. How well I describe him is less important than what the activity of description requires. It demands that I pause to pay attention, and paying attention is tricky.

I have lingered this morning. It is raining hard, the house is wonderfully quiet, and the coffee hot and unusually good. I meant to finish unpacking from a trip completed yesterday, to get to my writing with haste. Instead, I have stayed in other situations longer than expect, and I have been reluctant to leave those distractions. By definition, I have lingered.