I’ve mentioned in other blog posts that I am lucky to have good friends who belong to other Christian traditions. As well as the differences in preferred worship style we also do see the world somewhat differently. One could suggest that they are optimists, and I’m pessimistic; and that would be fairly true. Or that they’re ever-hopeful and I am a grumpy old cynic. That would also be true, but you know, we all have days when we do and think differently so perhaps one day it’ll be me with the wild joyfulness. What I value most about these lovely ladies in our friendships is their patience with me in the face of what must feel like endless questions about how they’re so quick to see God in things, trusting him completely. The cynical me would look instead at confirmatory bias and find as many un-spiritual explanation for things as possible.

So we get to today. I had a pretty poor night’s sleep last night – eyes wide open at 4:40am having jolted myself awake at the end of a dream. In this dream, I was trying to pack for a trip to Chicago (am attending SLA Conference in July). But I couldn’t find a suitcase, and the taxi was waiting, and I was getting crosser and crosser and eventually had to take one from my parents’ loft whilst stressing about missing the flight. I tweeted about the dream this morning in amongst my general tired grumpiness and other banter. Because, let’s face it, that kind of unpreparedness is bordering on the nightmare scenario for me. The lovely Paula C and I had a marvellous disagreement about the point of this. Paula, who is by far the wisest of the two of us, decided it was clearly something important. This amused me this morning because it does so sum up the difference between us. I think she’s talking utter nonsense.

@PaulaCummings Yes. I do too. It means “don’t forget to acquire a new suitcase soon.” 🙂

— Sara Batts (@Batty_Towers) May 16, 2012

And then there was this moment of genius banter from Ms C:

@Batty_Towers Your Hard Stare (™) merely bounces off the shininess of my evangelical conviction.So there.;)

— Paula Cummings (@PaulaCummings) May 16, 2012

I love our differences and spending time with these women, online or in their actual company. They provide me a safe place where I test ideas and boundaries; where I take inspiration for living as a Christian in this messy world. I did not know it until later but Paula C was the sounding board Sian used, when I was exploring with her the idea of coming back to God during our time at library school. And she’s been an awfully helpful person ever since, exchanging helpful emails and allowing me to continue to ask stupid, angsty, short-sighted, selfish and difficult questions.