My son in law cares about signage. He puts his artistic ability to work creating colorful and eye catching signs for visitor centers, parks, coffee shops. The people who hire him want it to be easy for patrons to find their way through the door. To know how to navigate the menu, or the floor plan.
If you already know where you are headed, signs are superfluous. Asking a local how to get to a gas station can be dicey if the sequence of turns are so embedded in their routine they can't articulate them. If you are in unfamiliar neighborhoods, clear signs are a godsend.
Just before the battle of Hastings it happened that Halley's comet streamed across the sky. The Anglo-Saxons saw this and took it as an indication that they would lose. The Normans looked on in wonder, and believed that the blazing light was a harbinger that they would win.
Both were right.
The Bible that the minister read from in church one time was compact enough to cup in one hand. The cover was leather, and has seen a few decades. Being thicker on the outer edge than at the binding is a sure sign of serious study, and a willingness to stay cracked open with little coaxing. He talked about signs. Not the green ones with white Interstate font, but rather the beacons that God uses to point you in a specific direction. The text spoke of Gideon,
who asked God for a signal that he should fight the Midianites. If there was dew on the fleece, but it was dry all around, Gideon would attack. When that happened, he asked God to make the fleece dry but the grass around it wet. Which He did.
Asking for indications of which way to go helps us through those messy intersections. Like whether to take a job. Buy a house. Propose.
When the twins were babies I felt the urge to attend college graduation. No one I was particularly close to was walking but I slipped in near the back. There was only one graduate of the Masters of Arts in Religious Studies that year, and when he gave his valedictory speech I heard a voice speak to me.
"You should do that too."
Which was ridiculous. I went home and shared the preposterous notion with John who did not laugh.
"It's a good idea."
Why would he say that? Me taking graduate classes would of course entail more work for him, and what was this leading to anyway? But I stepped through the door, having read the sign, and tackled one course at a time. In three years, it was my turn to walk across the stage.
And something I could not possibly have predicted was waiting for me. An opening as the Director of Marriage Programs for my church.
