Last Exit Before Oblivion

On the old maps when you get to the edge there's a simple note: "There be monsters." You go off the map you take your chances. No one can tell you what's out there because no one has been there, or at least if they have they either didn't make it back or they're keeping quiet.

Jesus told his new disciples to "Come and see." That's the only way to find out what he's like, who he is.

Relationships have plenty of new ground. I have more that most people, having never played the dating games in school. The whole idea was distasteful to me: competing for the favors of a girl and then enduring the taunts of everyone around. As usual, you get good at what you do. I didn't do this, so never got good at it. Eventually I realized it would never happen so I quit thinking about it. The field lay abandoned. No one was interested in it.

Years came and went. People came and went too. Sometimes we'd talk but it never lasted long. I was comfortable talking with women if there was no chance of making any kind of a connection. One time a co-worker tried to hook me up with his daughter but the first meeting was a disaster and I never saw her again. I was embarrassed and she probably was too.

Age is a handy divider. There's not much point in trying to make a connection with someone much younger than I am, and the chance of meeting a woman my age still single is small.

Taken all together, the chance of meeting someone who fits the various characteristics is so small that I wrote it off. Equivalent to zero. Don't ever say things like that about God. He doesn't care about statistics and odds.

So, we met. She's not much younger than I. She's a follower of Jesus. She speaks her mind and knows how to tell a story. This is about as likely as one man from Terre Haute being on the beach at the same time I am. In other words there are no natural external limits on the relationship.

My natural response is to run. Fast. I'm not used to making decisions like this. Most of the time the decision is made be external elements. I look ahead and see the direction it'll go, and take comfort in the fact that I just have to play the role. This time there really is no such limit. I look ahead and see white paper. No map. What's out there? The only way to find out is to walk. Come and see.

And I feel God's hand on me, calming my panic. I want to say I'm too old for this kind of thing. Or some other excuse. It irritates me not being able to predict what will happen. Each meeting is odd.

I really don't know what will happen. So far we've not even met face to face. I don't know what her voice sounds like. We've seen pictures, and we've spent time sending text back and forth in Until Uru, avatars face to face or walking through the worlds.

This whole thing is so unlikely, such a bolt out of the blue, that I'm even more unsettled than usual. It seems so prosaic. Why is the God of the Universe concerned with something so insignificant as two people meeting? Yet there he is, making opportunities, making the impossible irresistible.