Comma-tary Vol. 4: Blinker pen

In a pencil cup on my desk is a blinker pen from the Stillspeaking store.  It joins a collection of kitsch, including the “Magnify Your Faith” binoculars or the handy “Wash Away Your Sins” bath and body sampler received as a gift.   

The logo on the pen reads, God is still speaking, 

 

 A button on the pen controls 3 light settings:  quick blink, slow blink, and solid light.  I’ve lost the plastic cover that immobilizes the button on the side of the pen, and the red light will flash if something in the pencil cup jostles against the pen and pushes the button.  Sometimes as I work at my desk, I’ll reach for the stapler, and see the red light beating a quick rhythm. 

I begin to wonder if the pen starts blinking on its own.  Maybe I’m missing something. 

I think of Moses.  Did his pen strobe with a quick blink before he jotted down the 10 Commandments?  Perhaps Paul saw a slow blink on his pen, like a beacon, and knew he couldn’t put off writing that letter to the Romans any longer.

Perhaps a woman wakes from a dream about a blinking light and records a story her grandmothers have told her, about a woman at a well.  God is still speaking, what have you heard?   Perhaps the prophet Hosea stares the unyielding red light on the pen, and sighs…his wife certainly won’t like this.  Never place a period where God has placed a comma.  

I sit at my desk and open mail, read mail, code invoices, draft reports, write bids, and reach for the phone to return a call.  I sneak a glance at the pencil cup to see if my pen is blinking.  I hope that somewhere in this punctuated world a pen is blinking.

 

Full Comma-tary Series:

Comma-tary Vol 1:  The Oxford Comma

Comma-tary Vol 2:  Proof-punct 

Comma-tary Vol 3:  Stillspeaking

Comma-tary Vol 4:  Blinker Pen