January Day

It had been months since I had seen either of them. So unlike each other, so unlike me.

I could share more--the color of their hair, the clothes they wore, how they've changed since college, what they do every day. It would all be interesting, actually.

But really, what it comes down to in the end is that we could talk about God.

It is a mystery how unlike can navigate unlike until they find the center. And there at the heart, God gives them a common tongue to talk of truth and of hardness and of hope. No, the threads that make us up are not wound the same way; they are not the same hues or textures or types. But in seeking God we find kinship.

One golden moment is captured, a freeze frame in my memory. One girl on the floor, the other in the rocking chair, both singing an old Nazarene song from their growing up in different keys, furnace blazing hot air on their backs.

Two voices singing homespun praise as I listen, humming along to a tune I've never heard but somehow know the sound of.