Starting a new tab in Firefox, I landed on a “news” item that touted: “The weirdest things people have seen on Google Maps.”  Now, I like Google Maps app and use it all the time. And I haven’t really seen that many “weird” things on there, except blurred people and an occasional blurred house. But apparently some people look hard for these things. Things like a guy, dressed in the same clothes, holding the same camera – in two different States! What are the odds of that!?

       In another shot, which I really think merits a follow up, the Google car passed one of those radar detector signs that first state the speed limit and then post yours. Driving in a 25 mph School Zone, the Google car pictured itself going 32 mph.

Can you say self-incriminating?

       Another funny one was a screenshot of a little development in Nova Scotia. Off of Nova Scotia Trunk Highway 7 is, and I looked this up to verify it, a little development consisting of one street off of the Highway, and two little streets off of that. A small development. The street coming in is “This Street.”  The first street off of that is “That Street.”  And you guessed it; the second street is “The Other Street.”  As Larry the Cable Guy would say: “That’s funny right there, I don’t care who you are.”

       Other pictures showed the inconsistencies of the algorithms at Google, where some faces get blurred, like the Statue of Liberty, and some others are not. Sometimes, even pets get blurred and some don’t. In one, you can read the airline name of a plane that photobombed the satellite imaging somewhere in Mongolia if I remember correctly. In the rest of the world, it’s remarkable how you don’t see planes – there are a lot of planes out there!

        I smiled at these things because, well, it’s nice to know that the computer and the algorithms are not perfect. To be human is to be flawed. Machines can be sterile, but humans aren’t. If we were all perfect, we would all be the same. The idiosyncrasies we develop, the imperfections we find in ourselves, the mistakes we have made along the way, give us character. That truth not only makes us human but makes us likeable. People that pass themselves on as perfect lose credibility for me.

        Now, God wants us to be perfect (Matthew 5:48). And I, we, aspire to do that. And someday, in heaven, we all will be. And what a day of rejoicing that will be! But in the meantime, we need to appreciate one another’s character, one another’s imperfections.

        In Galatians 6 the Apostle Paul said, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”  I think bearing one another’s burdens often means dealing, in a positive way, with the idiosyncrasies of others. What burdens one person is not necessarily what burdens another. I suppose in illness we can find uniformity – but even there, how one person deals with the adversity of physical ailments may differ from the way another one does. Or how burdensome a particular job, or financial constraint, or spouse or… how burdensome something can feel for me may be different than the way you deal with it, and together, we can make those rough places in life plain (to misquote Isaiah).

         Every person we meet has as many idiosyncrasies as we do. Let’s give each other grace in that. And stand together as brothers and sisters in it. It’s funny how the glitches of a computer got me to that thought. One of my eccentricities, I suppose.

Wishing you a smile today,

Craig

And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted,
help the weak, be patient with them all. 1 Thessalonians 5:14