It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. On top of normal work/life craziness, I’ve been hit with the one-two-punch of phone and car troubles.

Last weekend, I had the JOY of spending an evening with my good friend, Teagen, who was in town for work and the Chicago Marathon. We had a wonderful and rare opportunity to catch up face to face, without the help of Skype. It was relaxing and life giving. We were only briefly interrupted by the regular Chicago moment of a stranger coming up to ask for money/donations to an ambiguous sports team. The young man hovered at our table, presenting a pamphlet of some kind asking for cash. After eventually convincing him that neither of us had any cash on us, he slumped away and out of the restaurant. We continued to chat for another half an hour before deciding to call it an early night. We hugged and I went to grab for my phone in my purse, only to discover it was gone. It wasn’t in the restaurant. it wasn’t in her hotel room. That desperate “Athlete” had swiped my phone off the table, as he was showing us his pamphlet. AAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!

The joyful meeting had suddenly turn fully annoying. I called the cops, who called apple, who sent me an email (after about an hour on hold). We ran back to Teagen’s hotel room to use her computer, which was a secure work computer, which made google think someone was breaking into my account, which made it lock me out and only offered me the option of sending a new password via TEXT! I then had to call Google to get into gmail (put on hold again), to get my apple email, to get the phone erased, to get the police report filed. I got home about 4 1/2 hours later exhausted, with adrenaline coursing through my veins. What a hassle! The next day, I went to At&t, who connected me with my insurance company, who sent me out a new phone, which I received yesterday.

And the car (there IS a point to this post beyond complaining, I promise). I drove to my Figaro performance at my normal call time for the show, 9:15pm (yep.. when I want to be in bed) and had a great show! When starting my car afterwards to drive my colleague and myself home, I noticed a whining noise, which culminated in the thing dying outside of my colleagues apartment building around 11:15pm. Already exhausted, I called AAA and waited. The technician showed up within about 30 minutes, and quickly figured out that it was the alternator and the battery. It would have to be towed. He called it in and assured me that the tow truck would be there within the hour. I got a call from AAA, telling me their ETA was 2:15am. Ugh… not great, but whatever. 2:20am roles around and I call to check on the tow truck. New ETA 3:15am. The truck gets there at 3:30am and very quickly loads my poor, dead car (while I, shivering, run to the CVS across the street to go to the bathroom… it had been a LONG wait), and drives it to the Sears auto right by my house. He unloads it and drops me off at 4:00am. Woof.

I am happy to say, a week after the phone and a day after the car, I have a new phone and a fixed car. I could now start a long diatribe about the evils of technology and how they only complicate out lives… but I’m not going to do that.

As I sit here on my day off, thinking through the past events, the frustrations really had very little to do with technology. In fact, technology is what made it all better. My phone was stolen by a person. I actually was ok right after it happened, it’s only a phone, until I had to sit on hold and call all these numbers and WAIT. But I worked myself up over waiting. Over being impatient. My phone, with all my important information, was stolen and within 24 hours, technology allowed me to wipe my phone clean, lock them out, find their location (if they ever turn it on), order me a replacement, load ALL the information from my previous phone on the new one, and made the phone basically worthless to the thieves. I find myself honestly looking at the situation, which was annoying, but frankly, it’s only a thing. It can be and was quickly replaced. A person stole it and I freaked out because I had to wait. All the while, technology was fixing it. Crazy.

While last night, waiting for the tow truck, was a LONG night, one phone call got my car looked at and towed to a Sears, which had it fixed by this afternoon. Again, the only real problems were lack of sleep, waiting, and money. Relatively small in the scope of life and whats important.

I know is popular today to berate our generation’s dependance on technology in every area of our lives, especially relationships. While I whole-heartedly agree with many of the criticisms, I don’t fully subscribe to the doomed perspective. Yes, I am concerned for kids who grow up with cyber-bullying, never having to see the faces of those they pick on, taking away the chance to develop empathy and am constantly frustrated with the texting games that go on in the dating world. And I, obviously, fully champion having face to face dialogues and debates and hate to see how easily social media creates a world of “Us vs. Them”.

However, I think, when we are our parents ages, we will see that technology allowed us to stay in touch with those we love in a special and unique way. My dinner with Teagen was, in large part, thanks to Skype and phones, which have allowed us to stay close friends years after we left St. Olaf, even though she lives in Portland and I in Chicago. In fact, I have so many close and special friends in my life because we can sit and have coffee over Skype, while living thousands of miles away from each other. Skype has allowed me to see my nieces and nephews grow up and they have gotten to know me, even when I wasn’t able to visit often. I think its rare for my parent’s generation to still be in close touch with high school or even college friends. While our generation may struggle to find depth in the new relationships they start because of the dangers of text communicating, we are allowed the joy of keeping and cultivating relationships with people we have met at every stage of our life. We know what their kids look like and instantly hear of life milestones, thanks to things like Facebook and Instagram, which reminds us to call and keep in touch.

Of course, technology complicates our lives more than they use to be, but it truly is what you make it. If you use Facebook and texting as a way to avoid having real friendships, then YOU are choosing to not engage in relationships. I’m just grateful I have friends and family who use it as a vehicle to be in my life.

And I’m just grateful for AAA.

(Oh, and the top picture of two of my nieces staring at a computer, was the first time they got to see Auntie Laura sing. They sat and watched ALL of the video of my Cendrillon (Cinderella) opera. And I was able to watch them enjoy it. Yep. Technology made for a pretty special moment there.)

I’ve decided that the older I get, the more like my father I become. When I was little, any question about faith I had for my dad was answered by the many books he would read, followed up by the books or materials referenced in those books. We would sit together and discuss all aspects of life and faith, never being told to believe something just because he said so. My curious mind was always encouraged and valued. I have always enjoyed the moment when something clicks in my brain and enjoy the process of learning and thinking through complicated concepts. I even have that clicking moment when learning new music. There is a point in the opera learning process when the piece is finally organized in my brain. It is then I know I am only a few short steps away from memorization. It’s a great moment!

I remember my dad always finding ways to create a safe place to learn and question faith for others as well. Since he had done his own research to find his faith, he always wanted to make sure this opportunity was available to others. He has spent over 15 years meeting with a group of people of different backgrounds and beliefs to explore Christianity. He would come with resources and, in kind, read anything the group brought to him to consider as well. I attended many of these meetings when I was in high school, even though the rest of the group was three times my age. I guess you could say the geekiness set on at a very young age and apparently never left.

My book collection and list of podcasts today are evidence of a continued fascination with understanding my faith from all angles. I listen to an amazing podcast called Unbelievable? from England that hosts debates between Christians and non-Christians, sermons by numerous pastors from around the country, NPR’s Intelligence Squared and a great podcast called The Friendly Atheist. My dad’s collection is filled with books by all perspectives. I remember him saying “you can’t just read the people who agree with you.” I love this about him. He not only instilled in me a love of researching and searching for myself, but also a love of conversing with and listening to people who don’t agree with my conclusions.

I hadn’t realized until recently how much of an impact that had on my worldview today. I completely and utterly believe that the biggest problem in our country today is our inability to LISTEN to people who are different from us. I have a large contingency of Facebook friends from small town South Dakota and another group of big city singers. Every time an election comes around or major event in the news, I see these two groups post and rally around their friends, in complete shock that anyone could disagree with them, which usually leads to a host of comments agreeing with their position. Of course, these two groups are usually on opposite sides of the fence. And every once and a while, a rogue from the other side will comment with a disagreement, often leading to a vicious back and forth of arguments and accusations. I stay out of these arguments and find myself wishing the individuals could converse, in person, about how they came to their conclusions. It’s easy to rant at each other through a computer screen, but much harder (and more valuable), to have those discussions face to face. This, however, means you have to have people of differing opinions in your life and a place and willingness to engage in difficult conversations. While I don’t agree with all of the people in my life, I love and respect people on every side of every issue.

My soapbox platform of productive, lively debates has culminated in the formation of a Pub Theology group. Originally, I wasn’t sure in which direction the group would go. I had previously started a group to discuss writings of C.S. Lewis (Yep.. major geek alert, but you should know that I’m pretty sure Lewis was my soulmate and it is devastating that he is dead), but thought this one might have a broader scope of topics and participants. It has become an amazing, life-giving group. We are a mixture of Christians, Atheists, Secular Humanists, Agnostics, and others, coming together to discuss relevant issues. We have discussed topics from “Why are Millennials leaving the church?” to “Art and Censorship,” “Confronting Radicalism” to “Separation of Church and State.” At a recent brainstorming session, we also decided to delve into more incendiary topics, since the core of the group knows each other well enough and has formed comfortable, respectful friendships through our discussions. We feel ready to discuss hot topics and I can’t wait!

This group has become a micro-example of what I wish our world could do. We don’t have to pretend that we agree, or that everyone can be right, or that any issue is completely black or white. We don’t demonize those who don’t believe what we do and we strive to genuinely understand the other perspective. Granted, I acknowledge that we happen to have an exceptional group of individuals who joined the group because they want to meet people who think differently than they do, but shouldn’t we all have that goal? Isn’t life more interesting when we are able to explore this beautifully diverse world and appreciate the differences? Can’t we respect that people have come to other conclusions than we have, even if we think theirs is wrong? Can’t we acknowledge that if we EVER have changed our mind, or factored in new information to a belief, we were wrong ourselves? And there are probably a whole host of issues we will change our minds on in a good 10 to 20 years, and that’s ok. We spend our life journeying through trial and error, assumptions and proof, theoretical and actual. We should never assume others aren’t on a journey as well.

I feel like we function out of a belief that we can’t respect someone we disagree with, even though we find a plethora of disagreements with every loved one in our life. The difference is that we know and understand them, regardless of that issue or are actively working through it in love. It’s easy to hate, disrespect, and be offended by the beliefs of someone who we don’t know, someone who may only exist, to us, in cyberspace or on the TV screen. But If we make the time and the space to get to know people who disagree with us, we can move away from the obsession with polarizing issues and closer to understanding the human beings around us. The more of us willing to risk having uncomfortable conversations and open minds, the more progress can be made and our world can move closer to functioning out of love and respect, rather than fear.

Ok.. I’ll get off my soapbox now. Thanks for reading. 🙂