July 17, 2004

Dings

The coffee pot dings five times when the coffee’s ready, twice two hours later when it shuts off. The new Italian toaster/convection oven dings in groups of two for a total of six when it finishes its appointed task. When opened, the refrigerator drawers give you a scant few seconds to get what you’re after and then begin scolding with rapid and unceasing dings until closed. The drier just offers a laconic buzz when it’s finished.

Then there’s the car — lights, ignition, open door — all different, less terse, more melodic dings so you can tell which is which. Even the horn is more of a ding than a honk, despite the neat little trumpets on its pressing place (aka button). Then there are always the dings from the parking lot, but they’re a reminder of another kind.

The little whatsits on the pro tennis courts tell us when the serves are out or long. They’re even talking now about an electronic strike zone that’ll replace the annoying and unpredictable ambiguity of umpires, maybe even mimic their strange gutturals that so perturb batters and pitchers.

These signals are not all so obvious nor does everybody mind them all the same. Some, like the coffee pot, take our authority and control problems into account and simply disconnect after a sensible amount of time so we don’t burn the house down. But most just come and go, expecting us to have enough good sense to cooperate. They’re all there to warn us, to keep us, as they say, “between the curbs.”

Jesus didn’t use dings or honks or buzzes or even smoke and bells and whistles like some churchers, but he did use signs all the same. He used the seasons and the weather and coins and fig trees and mustard seeds. And the cross.

We know them, if we pay attention. What we do about them, he leaves up to us, for example, among other things, thinking up words like onomatopoeic.

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