mega pixels and tattoos

Thursdays are sometimes a 'coffee' day.

At least the mornings often are. I'm usually along at the local school to share the morning coffee break with the teachers there. And, despite the rain simply chucking it down, I popped along once again today. Ready as always for just whatever the time and the place might bring.

I didn't get my coffee, mind. And I wasn't there for long. And the brief and fleeting bits of conversation that I had were not exactly memorable or in any way profound.

But sometimes that's just how it is. Like the tons of tiny mega pixels joining with each other in the magic of the camera to capture in a photograph some scene before our eyes, these tiny words, of seeming insignificance, combine in time to build for folk a picture of the friendship of the Lord.

In fact, I guess, the more of the pixels there are (and the smaller, presumably, also they are) the sharper will be the picture's definition. So the fact that today's conversation was just a further spattering of none too weighty words .. well, that's neither here nor there.

It's part of the picture that's slowly built up by the Lord.

A bit like the way that a person can get a tattoo.

Which brings me on to another conversation that I had. And this time there was a coffee with it too!

I was back from the school by this time. And I stopped with the girls for a bit of a break and a chat over coffee and cake.

I don't know how we got onto it, but the talk got around to the way some folk have rings through their tongues and their lips and their .. well, who knows what! Just about anything goes, so it seems!

And that got us on to the theme of tattoos. And then it emerged that one of the girls has the names of her children tattooed on her back. Along with some symbol of happiness.

Now it takes some time to get tattooed like that. I'm led to believe.

So many different pin-pricks of the needle in the skin. But all these little pin-pricks, each one itself entirely insignificant, combine again to paint a picture right across a person's skin. Which lasts, I think, for ever.

It's the same thing as before.

And it's really quite a thought. To have your children's names engraved like that upon your very frame. And a symbol of such happiness embracing their dear names.

Which is pretty much what God himself has done. Engraved our names upon his heart.

And I guess the only way in which such bonds of lasting love are formed between us mortals here on earth, whereby the love of God himself is best made known, is through these million 'pin-pricks' of the countless 'little' words that pass between us as we take the time to sit with one another in this way.

You could just say I stopped and had a coffee quite a lot!

But I think that misses the point. The 'pin-prick' points that bit by bit inscribe the love of God upon a person's heart.

I could have been pored over ancient texts, I suppose, exploring the Hebrew and Greek.

The Word.

Or the 'words'. Those million little 'mega pixel' words which slowly build a picture of the one who is himself the Word.

Well, it's both, of course. It's not an either or. The 'pin-prick' words of friendly conversation convey in time the great, eternal Word.

Later on I read the Word to a lady in the hospital. I mean, there was a fair amount of 'pin-prick', 'mega pixel' words as well, from both of us. But I finished with the Word.

The lady's up in her nineties now. Got all her marbles there. And she was wonderfully bright, considering.

"I've got nothing at all to grouse about," she said. "And everything still to be thankful for."

I thought to myself, 'Well there's a woman who's certainly got the picture!'

And that's really all that I'm eager to do. To help folk get the picture. To get the point.