John and I invited a few couples to join us for a marriage group. Now that zoom is firmly entrenched in our routines things like where you live and how crammed your schedule used to be have lost their impact. As chance would have it the first meeting included participants in three time zones. I am not usually disoriented by the discrepancy between my clock and those of my kids in Missouri and California. I can, it turns out, subtract three without breaking into a sweat. But for this effort the people who wanted to join live in Washington, Arizona, and Scandinavia. I communicated with them easily enough, and yet I forgot to ask a pertinent question. 

 

"What time do you think it is now?"

 

We bounced around with possibilities for when to meet, the "where" having become moot, and I tried to keep track of varying stances on real time. What was good for us, say seven in the evening, translated to a very late night for some, and inconveniently early for others. Nailing down a day and hour is rarely my favorite part when getting a group out of the hypothetical and into the actual, but in this instance it was maddening.

 

As the minute to begin approached, there was a kerfuffle. I had miscalculated. John is less troubled by such things as UTC + 3 and stepped in to secure common ground. Against great odds, all faces appeared on the screen. It was lovely.

 

It strikes me as a vivid illustration for other circumstances that divide us. I staunchly believed that it was two thirty, and when I looked at my clock I had confirmation. Another person was convinced that it was nine thirty, and had her own watch to back it up. Still others were certain that it was morning, and the sun in the sky confirmed that. 

 

All of us were right. How can such differences coexist? 

 

I suppose part of the dilemma is that I am egocentric. I view the world from my vantage point because that works for me. But in even having names for other legitimate perspectives.... like EST, ACDT, CET, EET, and GMT... we begin to take off the blinders. What is more, my life is rounded out by making room for more slices of the human experience.