Suppose you don’t know what a “jenny” is. You heard the word used in casual conversation, let’s say, and didn’t want to admit your ignorance of its meaning and so you simply nodded along. Or perhaps the word showed up in a story you were reading to your grandchild and the meaning didn’t seem to matter as much as its happening to rhyme with “penny” and so you just kissed the child on the head and turned the page. But whatever your introduction to the word, you put a pin in your ignorance and purposed to look up the meaning another time.
Well, one day the office of your subconscious decided to put the “jenny” file at the top of the stack. Somewhere in the recesses, a desire to learn the definition must have flickered to life in the coal bed of your mind. Looking around, your smartphone sat about ten paces away, lying flat on the end table beside the couch; alert, idling at 57% battery life, and eagerly awaiting your command. But not far from the phone, also at a distance of roughly ten paces, stood the lone bookcase in the house. The narrow case had but four shelves and only two of those had any books on them; the other two sporting framed pictures, knick-knacks, and assorted board games. But of the dozen-or-so books on the two shelves, there stood a Webster’s New World Dictionary. The big, blue tome was more decoration than reference tool. It was an antique or sorts – an art piece to go with the old gentry estate motif you were shooting for. You’d moved that dusty dictionary around the country with you; shelving and reshelving it on every little bookcase you’d ever owned. But you couldn’t remember having actually opened it.
In that moment, a voice within began calling out; asking you to leave your phone dark for once and to pull the dictionary from its dock instead. It’s the same voice you hear sometimes when you see a bundle of firewood for sale or when you happen upon a piano with its fallboard up and the keys open for the striking or when you see a bag of flour on a shelf in the grocery store. It’s the voice of the Analog crying out for you to forego push-button heat, canned music, and packaged food for something more genuine and real. It’s a cry to produce and create; to enjoy having something that’s tethered to your own head and hands.
You step past your phone and pull the book from the shelf. Carrying it back to the couch with both hands, it’s heavier than you remember. Sitting down, you reach under the shade and feel for the switch to turn on the lamp. Opening the book to somewhere in the middle, “Neanderthal” happens to be the first guide word you see at the top of the page. You pause for more than a moment as you try and get your bearings. “Does ‘j’ come before or after ‘n’?” you wonder to yourself. Singing the alphabet song under your breath for a moment, you begin flipping back toward the cover. An odd sense of excitement and adventure begins to dawn in your benighted soul. It’s just a simple little word, but suddenly you can imagine the definition for “jenny” to be the secret code that will unlock some mysterious passage to immense medieval treasure. Your heartbeat quickens. The sound and feel of the thin paper, the exercise of your eyes, and the flurry of information running through the processes of your mind livens your soul somehow.
Whether it was a distant childhood reflex or an aping of something you saw in a movie once, believing you’d finally flipped to the right page, you began sliding your pointing finger down the columns of words. “Jazz”, “jealous”, “jejune”, “jelly” and then – you see it. You eagerly read the entry: “jenny \ `jen-ē \ n {fr. the name Jenny} 1a : a female bird [ ~ wren ] b : a female donkey 2 : SPINNING JENNY”
“Huh,” you think to yourself. “That’s interesting. When Craig said he was looking to sell his jenny this winter, he must have been talking about some donkey of his. How funny – I’m sure I must have looked confused.”
You close the big book with a sigh, sad that you don’t have any more words to investigate. Hearing your phone chirp, you obediently stand up to heed its call. Checking your notification, you lay the dictionary where your phone had been; deciding not to reshelve it in hopes of using it again sometime soon. The tone had alerted you to an email from Amazon informing you that your latest order had shipped. You slavishly clear the screen and slip the phone in your pocket. Looking up, your eye falls on the polished brass fireplace screen still covered in garland and holly. “A fire,” you say to yourself. “Yes – a fire. I’m going to go gather some wood. I’m going to sit by a fire tonight and read the dictionary. Let the digital gods be ignored!”
We’re looking forward to bidding the world goodbye for a bit tomorrow as we gather together to bid God’s Kingdom come. And in our fellowship, worship, and study of His Word – it will indeed come and what a blessing it will be! Our return to the world will come all too soon but we’ll be much stronger for the time away. Much stronger and more ready to make a difference! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!
- Pastor Tate
