All right, I'm going to be reading Luke chapter 6 verses 12 through 16, the 12 Apostles.

One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray and spent the night praying to God.

And morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose 12 of them, whom he also designated Apostles, Simon, whom he named Peter, his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, son of Alphius, Simon, who was called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

So as the sun rose this morning, I was taking a walk in the park, walking and praying.

I'm a kinetic processor and have found that inner stillness, ironically, comes easiest for me in physical movement.

So I'm on a regular prayer walk. This is a part of my routine. And there's always a few characters who are in the park with me as well.

There's a couple of dog walkers, some older folks who are early risers, and a few waking up from another night out in the cold without a roof over their heads.

We politely observe the unwritten rules of urban conduct, which is do not speak to one another, avert your eyes, head nod at most, but to each their own.

I make coffee at home every morning, but on Sunday, sometimes I like to treat myself to a very fancy cup of some of Portland's finest.

So in the morning, I was then in line at heart, and what did everyone do in line as they stood there waiting those 120 seconds to place their order?

Yeah, they took a tiny little screen out of their pocket, and they distracted themselves.

One guy had a me, must have been a regular because he carried on this friendly conversation with the person running the cash register for what must have been 45 unbearable seconds for me.

As I stood there behind him trying to make eye contact with the cash here, like this is absurd, how dare you?

When I finally made it to the front, this is what I said, 12-ounce, black, no room.

You got it. He scanned my card, and I moved on. I then acrobatically cycled here, holding a hot cup of coffee in one hand while trying to operate my bicycle with the other.

I passed all sorts of people on the sidewalks, didn't interact with a single one of them, even more people and vehicles or bicycles that were passing me in the other way.

All these people, neighbors to me, all of these people, strangers to me. That was my morning.

And yours probably wasn't entirely different. And if this evening I was asked to pick out any of those neighbors that I interacted with today out of a lineup,

like the people that I passed this morning as I was in prayer in the park, or the people that stood next to me in line at heart, or that I rode my bike past on the sidewalk, or the cashier that I so quickly spoke with.

If I was asked to pick out any one of them from a lineup later tonight, I doubt that I could do it.

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