Technology and the Velocity of Glory
By Kirk Bartha |
| |
|
| |
| Many people seek fellowship because they are afraid to be alone….The Christian community is not a spiritual sanatorium….Let him who cannot be alone beware of community….Let him who is not in community beware of being alone….One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation, and despair.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Life Together (1954)
In our cities there is no more day or night or heat or cold. But there is overpopulation, thralldom to press and television, total absence of purpose. All people are constrained by means external to them to ends equally external. The further the technical mechanism develops which allows us to escape natural necessity, the more we are subjected to artificial technical necessities.
Jacques Ellul – The Technological Society (1964)
Transformation seems to be an important value for the emerging church. Metamorphosis, is a word which occurs four times in the New Testament – twice in synoptic accounts of Jesus’ transfiguration, once in Romans 8 about having a transformed mind, which is paradoxically contingent upon knowing the unknowable mind of the Lord in the doxology of Romans 7, and once in II Corinthians 3 about the Church being transformed into the likeness of Christ with ever increasing glory.
The transformation of Jesus and His people is a physical and spiritual change. The transfiguration of Jesus is a mysterious story of embodied lightning. Imagine three disciples (Pete, Jim, and John Thunder) on Mt. Tabor gawking at Jesus, Moses and Elijah. Moses starts reminiscing about having to put a bag over his head when he descended from Sinai. Elijah chuckles and recounts being the “first man to fly”, not to mention it was in a blazing hot chariot. And there's Jesus standing quietly between the two of them and He just happens to be glowing like sheet lightning. Trinitarian pyrotechnics... When it comes to being the people of God, has the blazing metamorphosizer (the Holy Spirit) ever ceased to infuse a holy body’s, heart, soul, mind and strength with that fire which burns yet does not consume?
Eugene Peterson has said that if the church is dying in any way it’s dying from lack of imagination. Regarding imagination, Czeslaw Milosz, the Nobel-prize winning poet believes, “Imagination can fashion the world into a homeland as well as into a prison or a place of battle. It is the invisibles that determine how you will view the world…Nobody lives in the ‘objective’ world, only in a world filtered through the imagination.” Well, I guess that is why Paul said something about not resting our eyes on what we see…
With fresh ideas of transformation and imagination in mind let me ask a question. Is the Western Church making good use of global communications technology (GCT) to arrest popular culture and greater serve the nations of the world? I don’t know the answer. To rip off Ellul, I’m just a non-specialist who likes to think globally while acting locally. I am Canadian. And Canadians have always been interested in communications, engineering, and global issues. It stems from hosting 36 million people from all over the planet strung out over 9000 km (5700 miles) and six time zones.
The other day I downloaded the Google Earth Beta (earth.google.com) for my five-year old son Luke. He can surf the entire planet from space and zoom in anywhere he likes and see his own backyard in one click and the Nile Delta in the next click --- through data-based satellite imagery.
Communal Creativity Ten years ago, a student in my youth ministry got on a plane to meet a Christian guy she'd "met" on the Internet. We had many discussions about her "choices”"before she boarded the plane. On the flight to meet the infamous "Internet American", she struck up a conversation with the guy sitting beside her on the plane. The funny thing is, in a "sideways" kind of way, she ended up marrying the guy she sat beside on the plane and never did end up connecting with the guy she supposedly fell in love with in some creepy chat room. That young woman is now a duel citizen and happily married to "Air Man" and together they have two great kids. I never condoned or condemned her route to intimacy, but I am still smiling and shaking my head.
People go places physically because they are already there in spirit. The Benedictines have a vow of stability. But stability is so much more than a geocentric value. Ask any refugee or aid worker how stable they are so far from home for so long. Immediately after the tsunami, a friend of mine spent 12 weeks in Indonesia. He’s presently leading a team through Laos. More than ever, the Western Church must focus on providing stable foundations locally for the sake of ministering into unprecedented destabilization globally.
24-7 prayer One ministry poised on the cusp of culture and flowing with zealous fervor into the nations is the growing global justice ministry of 24-7prayer.com, a five years young kingdom ministry modeled after the Moravians. In the fifth year of their adventure, the Moravians shifted from local prayer to global justice and mission (and the Wesleyans, among many others, are still eternally thankful). 24-7prayer.com is a U.K based 'web-phenom' getting millions of hits a month from young intercessors all over the world, in a plethora of languages, connecting thousands of enthusiastic young leaders who are interacting and responding to one another as they live the kingdom come into the gutters of the world.
The fun part about 24-7 is that they all know they are creatively responding together as one. They act and move like an online community, as if the Holy Spirit is with them and blessing their friendships as one big happy family. Among other gutters, this family is serving Jesus Christ in the shadows of East Hastings, Vancouver – the poorest postal code (zip code) in Canada, where there is at least one heroin-related death every day. Can time zones and continents hinder 24-7 from being together and moving as one?
In the spirit of Youth with a Mission (YWAM) and Operation Mobilization (OM), 24-7 is a great example of the missional scope and fluid dynamic of a global Church everywhere present without walls, borders, limits or pretense. Imagine, a kingdom ministry of 20-somethings invading the gutters of the world, and they don’t take themselves the least bit seriously – a refreshing "emerging" ministry to be around, to say the least.
Authentic Mission
The other day, I got an e-mail from a close friend asking my opinion about a relative befriending an Israeli soldier online who’d like to "come to Canada for a visit". I had no idea what to suggest, so I clicked through my in-box. The next two e-mails were just as complex. One was from a young lady in our house church who is overseas with a team preparing to go into a highly-persecuted area in the Middle-East. And the other was a coded briefing from a young Torontonian (which means he’s from Toronto…and yes, Toronto is not just near Canada, it’s in Canada. And I hope you don’t mind that I’m bracketing my comments like McLaren…it drives me nuts when he does it to. It’s a pseudonymous character thing – introduce another voice talking from inside the same head. Kierkegaard was creepy and brilliant…anyway, back to “Torontonian”) in the midst of a whirlwind preaching tour of Indonesia. And to top it off, as I was reading these two e-mails I got cold-skyped (skype.com - free online global telephone) from someone I’ve never met in Istanbul.
This year, our little house church (part of epicmx.com) has prayed for many, blessed others financially, anointed the sick, ministered regularly alongside the urban poor, and sent young kingdom leaders all over the world. From our one little house church: a young couple recently returned from Laos; another young couple stepped out in faith to serve in France for the summer; a married woman returned from Jamaica with kingdom of God and angel stories; a single girl who speaks Arabic is presently preparing for persecution in Jordan; a single guy has us all praying about his potentially heading to India to meet a Hindu he’s been chatting with online; and for all I know, my young family of five may be heading to Africa for a season of exploration and learning through pilgrimage.
Global Velocity If I take my family to Africa, my access to global communications technology (GCT) will become more limited. This has been an ongoing tension for global Non-Government Organizations (NGO's) and Missions Organizations. To be a prolific "user" of our global technological digicosm, "access" is typically limited to those who are established on the GCT matrix and can afford its privileges. How many Rwandans have a cell phone? Not too many survivors in Darfur have an e-mail address. How many Africans could learn how to make good use of cell phones in the redevelopment of their nation? Answer: potentially millions.
In major African cities the marketplaces are full of cell phone chatter, and if a student or business leader has an e-mail address they typically have to go to an Internet Cafe. The concern I'm bringing up is the potential use of such technology made available en masse for the sake of better development. Another example is satellite television. Since the Gulf War, there has been a perpetual inflow of GCT's into the geo-political strata of the Middle East. So much so, that Missions and Aid workers have told me that it seems like every Arabic speaking family has a satellite dish. Just before the War in Iraq, a leader of a major missions organization told me, "Thanks to satellite, Saddam Hussein has Jesus in his living room."
Global Communication Technology has huge ramifications for the Western Church’s global ministry of justice and righteousness. We have access to tacit technologies which are presently the fluid relational extensions between affluent persons in affluent nations going to Live8 concerts and waving their blue screens around like lighters.
The tsunami in Asia revealed the capacity and power of our present global communications technology. Within moments of the tsunami’s impact, NGO’s were in hyper-communications within their own ranks, in discussion with various global government organizations, and within hours launching the world’s largest ever full-scale disaster relief effort into one of the most secluded and religiously hostile areas of the world. In disaster relief, providing fresh water is the most important time sensitive protocol.
Another good example of the scope of GCT is Live 8. Just try to find someone in North America or Europe who didn’t hear about or watch or read or interact in some way online throughout the build up of that cultural monolith. Live 8 accomplished what Live Aid could not – specifically because of high speed GCT’s. As of writing this article, Technorati is hosting 15,000+ blog posts tagged to Live 8.
Everyone who can afford to see a band like U2 in concert can also afford to pull out their cell phones amidst the Disney enchantment of that "moment" and call that number on the big screen to stand together for global justice by tying up the phone lines at the United Nations., the World Health Organization, that particular NGO, and even the Prime Minister’s office (I'm Canadian...What do you Americans have for a national figurehead? I'm kidding!). And don't forget to cut and paste that form letter in an e-mail to your local politician (all of which I have done by the way). This is the lazy ethics of Starbuckers, with their caffeinated intravenous drips, wondering how much of their latte purchase actually goes into the international development of dairy cows and coffee beans (and yes I have my daily Americano and if I’m traveling, thanks to Len Sweet it’s a Blackeye or a Redeye, or a London Fog….but I digress). IPO, iPod, and Passion The rip and burn of Napster birthing iPod has rudely awakened the mafia-like bureaucracy of an over-inflated entertainment industry wanting its grazing consumers to fall back into some wrapped-in-plastic status-quo. (Yes, I know, "argumentum ad populum") With young music lovers, it’s not so much about the nail-biting ethics of "burn or buy”"(with cryptic FBI warning labels on CD’s) as it is about friends (who are not criminals) simply wanting to share their stuff. The day iTunes were first released, there were approximately a half million downloads – despite the fact that it was only available to Apple users. The other day a 20-something played a ripped and burned Coldplay in my vehicle. I asked him where he got it and he just smiled. Now sitting here working on this article I now notice that while this same guy (who was visiting from Ontario and had spent ten days in my home) put a folder on my desktop. When I clicked it open it had three full length movies in it, including Napoleon Dynamite, which I still refuse to watch. It’s our little argument. He loves the movie and I don’t care...Oh, and now he’s ringing me on MSN Messenger from Winnipeg asking me if I found his little treasure folder...Jerk!
Last week I took a young video producer (who is freshly back in after working on an Indie film in Hollywood) on a whirlwind tour of five Canadian cities with a Sony HD DV Cam and an Apple G4. In Halifax we met up with and filmed "The Contact" an Indie band about to go huge. When we met up to shoot some film we heard how the band had just mastered their album to be released later this summer and their national radio play begins soon. We all sat in a car and listened to the entire album and discussed which single should be released in which order when it all hits the radio and iPod. Here's my point: Two hours later, that same afternoon, on a flight from Halifax to St. John's Newfoundland, I asked the Hollywood Media Ninja if I could borrow his iPod. As I surfed through the menu of a thousand and one artists I found "The Contact" right after "Coldplay"...For the next hour I listened to an Indie band's yet-to-be-released master recording that I’d first heard two hours earlier in a rental car in downtown Halifax. Media Ninja got permission from the band to rip and burn and spread the love.
When it comes to music, these young technophiles and web-savvy Indie bands will always want to swap and share their files and then invite the handful of fans and the thousands to hear and experience their great music together. Music has always been the definitive communal experience. This is why ministries like Passion and Soul in the City have the potential to grow like wildfire locally and globally (as long as they keep themselves from being truncated by branding and the subsequent "circle the wagons" of streamlined business and over centralization of leadership). The Grateful Dead were doing this file-swap give-away eons ago when they let people record their concerts on piled up tape players in an open section of their concert venues (I'm not a dead-head but I've heard the stories from a Hippie who made me a tie-dye T and lives on prescribed Opium for his colon).
Want to take a risk and generate some buzz in the Christian Music Industry? Practically give away all your music online and charge a bigger fee or accept a freewill offering for the corporate experience (I know concerts cost a bazillion bucks for a bazillion reasons). The more people downloading the music the more people will show up for the concert to hear the interpretation of what it is they have strangely enough come to love but aren’t sure why.
Now imagine being in that venue with thousands of people allowed to text message their thoughts to the band, the preacher, or just general thoughts or pictures from their phones of their friends plastered up on the big screen. Draw the corporate body deeper into the communal experience. It takes nothing more than a number, a host, a laptop, and a message-master to screen stuff before it goes public. Try the text-message thing in your emerging church. Give your people access to you while you play, while you teach...But you may want to limit the technology and control the propaganda you feed the masses (No I’m not Marxist, infatuated with Hegel's dialectic, even though I am Canadian and have read The Communist Manifesto more than once). But have you ever wanted to stand up in the middle of church and say, "Hey, you just asked us a question...Hold on a second. I think I'd like to respond!"
Another example of GCT and multi-media: We are very close to delivering affordable high definition DVD quality audio and video in real time (with typical ten second delay), without a glitch, through the Internet, a small fraction of satellite costs with much simpler content controls and much better quality (see emergingproductions.com). To use a metaphor loosely based on my limited scientifc understanding: On the one hand, Global Communication Technology has reached some kind of critical mass, and on the other hand, it seems to be on the cusp of a supernova. Psychic Geographers In North America, Asia, and Europe GCT's have become “fluid geographic” and "pseudonymous psychic." You can be anywhere in a blink and be whomever you choose to be and click the "x" on the browser whenever you like. In a generation over-sexed and under-loved, over-medicated and misunderstood, the church has to grapple with technology’s depersonalization of individuals and help each person rediscover themselves by finding a rhythm of life together within the body of Christ. There's that kid who can't pull himself away from his new X-box and his "Japan-a-matrix meets urban-America-CSI" video game where he racks up a reputation killing hundreds of other global gamers online in real time. He's caught in the addictive web of a burgeoning ten billion dollar industry. And there's the single's bar personal ring tone trolling personal ads through Bluetooth so that everyone within reach of the barfly's sonar can know how to get up close and personal with the owner of that way sexy phone.
For the sake of face-to-face community, the church must somehow abort it's trust in digital projection and embrace an organic relationality that embodies and nurtures spiritual procreation. The Holy Spirit broods over creative people who are holy together. GCT is a utopia---The Island---but it is not the real world. Question: if a cosmic electrical storm took out every personal computer on the planet and fried every personal ring tone, what would we do besides replace our computers and phones as fast as humanly possible?
Personal Velocity I am a young leader within modern communications constructs. With the exponential growth of GCT we don’t need to be everywhere, making every decision or preach every message or teach every seminar with a stabbing Clint Eastwood crowfoot eye, "Yes, I just wanted to be here to tell you that this is the way it's going to be and I'm just so glad we could be here together so we could all hear it from me...punk!" In growing ministry collaborations, where there is unity, trust and authentic relationship, there is little need for more bodies filling more board rooms, conferences, and restaurants to think through more ideas and make big decisions together. Of course it takes time, effort, and clear cut plans to foster ministry friendships and kingdom come, but they no longer have to be forged at the expense of your local community or family.
Most emerging leaders have a tacit relationship with global communications technology. For better or worse, these technologies are a welcomed extension of the kingdom leader's existential / relational consciousness. Think of how much money could be rerouted away from the Sumo travel budget if anyone wanting to "reach those people over there" actually utilized global communications more effectively. When it comes to creative unity on a massive scale the elephant the modern ministry giants have to eat is their overbearing trust in their own individual brand / institutions over against the humble people of God who are spiritual refugees, global servants, powerlessly poor, and everywhere at home.
This is the crux: When a 14-year old hacks Netscape and at 19 releases Firefox which gets downloaded a million times the first day; when a bored teen sings "Dragostea Din Tea" by the Romanian pop band "O-Zone" into his web cam and gets downloaded over a million times and ends up featured on CNN and VH1; and when a young Christian friend of mine leaves his computer science degree to pursue a communications software dream which quickly turns into a healthy and hefty IPO (vivonet.com), emerging church leaders need to be nurturing their transformed imaginations and the imaginations of those young emerging leaders within their scope of influence.
The potential of global communications technologies should be perpetually morphing the emerging church, a church maintaining its commitment to Paul’s reminder that we have nothing - and yet - possess everything (II Corinthians 6:10). Jesus didn't own a single thing (didn't even have a pillow...which means he most likely wouldn't have an e-mail address) and yet He continues to transform the world. It sounds like I'm contradicting myself, but I like to think of it as a paradox: having nothing and possessing everything.
Paul continues:
11Dear, dear Corinthians, I can't tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. 12We didn't fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren't small, but you're living them in a small way. 13I'm speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively! 14Don't become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That's not partnership; that's war. Is light best friends with dark? 15Does Christ go strolling with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands? 16Who would think of setting up pagan idols in God's holy Temple? (II Cor. 6:11-16, The Message)
Paul's last line reminds me of the I Samuel story where the Ark of the Covenant was kidnapped by pagans and placed before their god Dagon. Who would think of setting up God's holy presence in the Temple of pagan idols? Daniel would. Esther would. Nehemiah would. Jesus would. Paul would. And that is precisely why the emerging church needs to continue wrestling with God and his plans for global communications technology. Because something is falling to the ground in pieces and it’s not the Church.
 Kirk Bartha has spent 20 years introducing North American students to Jesus Christ. Kirk and his wife Darlene have three kids: Luke, Bree, and Nate. Kirk has pastored, developed teams and networks, mentored 20-somethings, worked 10 years for Billy Graham, and preached the cross of Christ at many concerts, conferences, and festivals. Darlene has worked in local churches, served World Vision, and has visited and continues to love and serve the orphans of the two-thirds world. check out Kirk's blog at http://theocity.blogspot.com.
|
| |
|
Hi Kirk,
I have read with great admiration your thoughts on the tsunami of modern technology.
I ponder the intersect of nature and human artistry. I wonder how technology is affecting communication and with it, our very humanity. I am grappling with how to embrace technology and use its unique communication attributes to internationally launch my artistry for God’s glory.
I think about the importance of connecting with God's beauty in nature, inhaling the intoxicating scents of the seasons, melting a wild strawberry on my tongue, knowing that the smoke of the campfire is the distilled essence of a hundred years of sun on maples, detecting the subtle murmurs of the forest, deliberately stepping off the sidewalk to immerse my feet in the cold dew of morning, abandoning the 15 cm of my laptop monitor to lie in snow at night and gaze at constellations my brain cannot even comprehend.
Having grown up in a suburb of Toronto but spending all my summers exploring the wonders of the Canadian Shield at my family cottage next door to internationally renowned Glen Rocks Bible Conference Grounds, [now Muskoka Woods Sports Retreat], I am grateful for what I now realize is a rare prolonged multi-sensory experience, fertile ground for my burgeoning imagination.
Yet now as an adult, sometimes years have passed by in which I did not even take time for a solitary walk outdoors. Why do I deprive myself of this pleasure, this sustenance?
Technology has transformed, and in many ways improved human experience; its sudden absence is a brutal reminder of our fragility and utter dependence. Yet living in Muskoka Ontario where power outages are frequent, we are a thunderstorm away from the Stone Age where the tasks of obtaining fresh water, food and warmth become paramount and are often prolonged for several days. We still need saving. We're still mortal.
Billions of us are living and working in cities of steel and concrete, cut off from nature by reason of financial necessity, trapped in prisons of our own brilliance, more incongruous than pandas in zoos, so far removed from our natural element are we now.
The life of an artist is often an isolated and lonely one. I am all too aware of the frequent tragedy of artistic lives cut short, starved of human support. I don’t want to be a statistic.
So as my health has deteriorated, and as my children have grown up, as my circle of friends and colleagues has expanded, I thank God for Alexander Graham Bell, for Jobs and Wozniak and Gates whose God-given creativity allow me to connect instantly, reliably and in significant ways. Technology has allowed me to break through walls of silence and reach out for spiritual and emotional support.
Words of friends are life-giving even if they come at a great distance.
I vastly prefer meetings in person, phone calls over email, email over text messaging. I haven’t even tried tweets. Nothing can replace the multiple layers of communication possible by being fully present face to face, one on one, nor substitute for being swept up in the waves of group hilarity and joy, the sharp give and take of rich conversation which stimulates the intellect and the soul. Our languages are tonal and visual, replete with dips and lifts of the voice, quirks of eyebrow, nostril, lips, neck, shoulders and hands. No little glossary of acrostic abbreviations can replace the depth of meaning and understanding made possible by human contact and authentic connection. We hunger for it, long for it, need it. We are designed for it.
Breadth of communication made possible by technology has replaced depth; we have become a shallow mass ripe to be swayed and uprooted by the next big shift, a mere mat of plankton floating on the surface of the Sargasso Sea. An easy mouthful.
Personally, I don't need 872 friends on Facebook, I just need the loving stalwart few who pick up the phone to find out how I'm doing, who encourage and cheer my wobbly steps toward wholeness and artistic accomplishment, and who love me enough to get in my face and tell me I'm wrong.
I am called to be in the world but not of it. I have to fight the urge to equate family time with watching television, or the impulse to ask people to call back later because they’re interrupting my favourite show.
I must not substitute the stones of technology for the bread of real human experience.
Yet I have to realize that the majority of the developed world has embraced global technological communications, that GTC is not something necessarily evil of itself but rather a fantastic tool that is making the penetration and proliferation of new and subversive ideas possible worldwide.
I cannot despise my technology addicted neighbors, confessing that I too, am a techno- addict who had to delete the game Bejeweled off my computer, and who plays Spider Solitaire any time my dialup server takes too long, which is many times every day. What if I prayed instead, or expressed my anxiety or impatience artistically? Or used that time to strengthen myself by reading the words of God, the saints, or the works of my fellow humans? Or quelled the inner noise and was silent?
As a Christian, I am automatically called to be both subversive and global, to be life giving and personal. I pray for strength not to be lured into the emptiness of technology. I pray God gives me the wisdom to balance my humanity with the call of my brothers and sisters amplified by modern technology. I cannot avert my eyes nor pretend I don’t hear them. I pray they hear and see Jesus through me, as fast, as effectively, as persuasively as my humanity, creativity and technology will allow.
Suzanne Holmes Rutherford 17 June 2009
|
I have read with great admiration your thoughts on the tsunami of modern technology.
I ponder the intersect of nature and human artistry. I wonder how technology is affecting communication and with it, our very humanity. I am grappling with how to embrace technology and use its unique communication attributes to internationally launch my artistry for God’s glory.
I think about the importance of connecting with God's beauty in nature, inhaling the intoxicating scents of the seasons, melting a wild strawberry on my tongue, knowing that the smoke of the campfire is the distilled essence of a hundred years of sun on maples, detecting the subtle murmurs of the forest, deliberately stepping off the sidewalk to immerse my feet in the cold dew of morning, abandoning the 15 cm of my laptop monitor to lie in snow at night and gaze at constellations my brain cannot even comprehend.
Having grown up in a suburb of Toronto but spending all my summers exploring the wonders of the Canadian Shield at my family cottage next door to internationally renowned Glen Rocks Bible Conference Grounds, [now Muskoka Woods Sports Retreat], I am grateful for what I now realize is a rare prolonged multi-sensory experience, fertile ground for my burgeoning imagination.
Yet now as an adult, sometimes years have passed by in which I did not even take time for a solitary walk outdoors. Why do I deprive myself of this pleasure, this sustenance?
Technology has transformed, and in many ways improved human experience; its sudden absence is a brutal reminder of our fragility and utter dependence. Yet living in Muskoka Ontario where power outages are frequent, we are a thunderstorm away from the Stone Age where the tasks of obtaining fresh water, food and warmth become paramount and are often prolonged for several days. We still need saving. We're still mortal.
Billions of us are living and working in cities of steel and concrete, cut off from nature by reason of financial necessity, trapped in prisons of our own brilliance, more incongruous than pandas in zoos, so far removed from our natural element are we now.
The life of an artist is often an isolated and lonely one. I am all too aware of the frequent tragedy of artistic lives cut short, starved of human support. I don’t want to be a statistic.
So as my health has deteriorated, and as my children have grown up, as my circle of friends and colleagues has expanded, I thank God for Alexander Graham Bell, for Jobs and Wozniak and Gates whose God-given creativity allow me to connect instantly, reliably and in significant ways. Technology has allowed me to break through walls of silence and reach out for spiritual and emotional support.
Words of friends are life-giving even if they come at a great distance.
I vastly prefer meetings in person, phone calls over email, email over text messaging. I haven’t even tried tweets. Nothing can replace the multiple layers of communication possible by being fully present face to face, one on one, nor substitute for being swept up in the waves of group hilarity and joy, the sharp give and take of rich conversation which stimulates the intellect and the soul. Our languages are tonal and visual, replete with dips and lifts of the voice, quirks of eyebrow, nostril, lips, neck, shoulders and hands. No little glossary of acrostic abbreviations can replace the depth of meaning and understanding made possible by human contact and authentic connection. We hunger for it, long for it, need it. We are designed for it.
Breadth of communication made possible by technology has replaced depth; we have become a shallow mass ripe to be swayed and uprooted by the next big shift, a mere mat of plankton floating on the surface of the Sargasso Sea. An easy mouthful.
Personally, I don't need 872 friends on Facebook, I just need the loving stalwart few who pick up the phone to find out how I'm doing, who encourage and cheer my wobbly steps toward wholeness and artistic accomplishment, and who love me enough to get in my face and tell me I'm wrong.
I am called to be in the world but not of it. I have to fight the urge to equate family time with watching television, or the impulse to ask people to call back later because they’re interrupting my favourite show.
I must not substitute the stones of technology for the bread of real human experience.
Yet I have to realize that the majority of the developed world has embraced global technological communications, that GTC is not something necessarily evil of itself but rather a fantastic tool that is making the penetration and proliferation of new and subversive ideas possible worldwide.
I cannot despise my technology addicted neighbors, confessing that I too, am a techno- addict who had to delete the game Bejeweled off my computer, and who plays Spider Solitaire any time my dialup server takes too long, which is many times every day. What if I prayed instead, or expressed my anxiety or impatience artistically? Or used that time to strengthen myself by reading the words of God, the saints, or the works of my fellow humans? Or quelled the inner noise and was silent?
As a Christian, I am automatically called to be both subversive and global, to be life giving and personal. I pray for strength not to be lured into the emptiness of technology. I pray God gives me the wisdom to balance my humanity with the call of my brothers and sisters amplified by modern technology. I cannot avert my eyes nor pretend I don’t hear them. I pray they hear and see Jesus through me, as fast, as effectively, as persuasively as my humanity, creativity and technology will allow.
Suzanne Holmes Rutherford 17 June 2009