Today’s Prayer to Passage will be from the book ‘A First Look at Communication Theory’ by Em Griffin. My theory is that communication is the key to all healthy relationships.

I pray, “Dear God, Thank You for being here for me to communicate with You today and always. Having studied communications and media in college, I have been able to observe a lot of what I learned and see the impacts of the media on our daily lives. What is an interesting note about the media today?”

I opened the book to page 381:

.
“Journalist C.J. Bosso discovered a similar pattern in American reaction to famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s. News organizations were slow to react to the recurring starvation in the African country, but when the press and television finally picked up the story, the coverage occasioned great public concern and a massive relief effort. When the media later abandoned the issue, people concluded that the crisis was over and shifted their attention elsewhere. Both studies illustrate the consistent finding that the public can only concentrate on five to seven news topics at a time. If the media bring a new topic to the fore, another topic will recede in the public’s consciousness.”
—EM GRIFFIN

This illustration played out just now as I finished typing the excerpt. I had turned on the morning news broadcast and was sipping a cup of bean brew. And…you know those physical comedy scenes when a character hears something appalling while taking a sip of coffee, then spews the coffee all over the clean shirt of the memorable-news messenger? That was me. Only I spewed my coffee onto my own shirt. My luck. The leading story was the unveiling of the women’s version of the Viagra pill. The news anchor first announced the prescription drug by its scientific name. Then the coffee-fountain finale: The broadcaster started saying my name. Then she said my name again. I got up from my chair and walked over to the TV. Female Viagra is being marketed as “Addyi.”

This was brand new information. I had not heard anything about this yet. My first thought was, “How long will it be before this is not referenced by my friends, family, and colleagues as a laughable moment at least once a day?” According to today’s Prayer to Passage, about as soon as seven other topics are more readily known by information consumers. My second thought was about the two pages that I read last night during a Prayer to Passage before sleep. The first was about how God has a great sense of humor, and how we shouldn’t doubt that God likes a good joke now and then. I was like, “OK. I don’t know what that means but I’ll think about it.” The second page was about sex. And then I thought, “What? That seems really random. God’s sense of humor and sex? What is God getting at?”

Um…apparently God wanted me to sleep on it, because a mere handful of hours later it started my day, loudly and clearly. Not to fret. Totally chuckling about it right now. I had to text a few of my closest friends this morning. I thought it was best that they heard it from me first. As if having a libido-boosting super-drug named after you has you saying to your friends, “You’re gonna wanna sit down for this.”

I am still amazed at how I doubted my passages last night. I thought I was losing it. Nope. God’s joke is on me, and the punchline was delivered with love. In case you are curious, here is last night’s passage about sex: “Sex is joy, and many of you have made sex everything else but.” I thought this was an odd phrase to fall asleep to. Now it sort of makes sense. Well, I hope this little pink pill brings joy to an impassioned lot of women and men alike.