Technology—Friend or Foe

When new inventions and innovations first invade our world of experience, they are usually vilified, or, at least, viewed with suspicion.  When cars were invented, sermons were preached against them, predicting what damaging effect they would have on peaceful community life.  The telephone was viewed as the purveyor of gossip, and television was condemned as the corruptor of civilization or, at least, the eroder of the next generation’s character.

When Alvin Toffler wrote his revolutionary book THE THIRD WAVE, we could not imagine an economy in which information would be the main product.  “How could an intangible thing “information” be a product?” our elders asked, shaking their heads and insisting that products were things manufactured, things one could touch or drive or put on a shelf at a store.

The outrageous idea that people the world over would carry computers and phones in the palm of their hands with no wires or plug-in cords was beyond comprehension.  And who could conceive of a “friend” or several hundred “friends” we have never met to whom we would reveal the secret details of every day life, show pictures of our children, share intimate thoughts and fantasies, and then have no control over the “friends” to whom they would in turn pass on our secrets without our consent.

We are coming to realize that digital technology is both the best and worst thing that has been invented so far.  Like cars, telephones, televisions, and airplanes, technology can be used for either great purposes or intensely destructive ones.

The naysayers of the past were partially right.  Cars can kill, and television can corrupt and damage the minds of children, youth, and adults.  Airplanes can be piloted into skyscrapers and kill nearly 3,000 people.  But planes can also get students home from college, bring orphans from China to loving families waiting to adopt them, bring Johnny home from war, or get grandma back in time for a kid’s graduation. Technology can make Jesus’s command to take the good news of God-with-us into the whole world a literal possibility.

Computers, I-Phones, and I-Pads can call 911 or deliver pornography to minors.  They can let me in Indiana keep in touch with seven grandchildren in Colorado, New York, Chicago, Nashville, and Vermont.  Or they can be used to bully a high school freshman all the way to suicide.  The devices we have in our pockets and purses and cars can save lives or destroy them.  They can free us or make us prisoners of media addiction.

We can be mindlessly swept along with the digital tides, surrendering our God-given minds to gamers and the peddlers of false information, or we can harness technology for good, give it strong boundaries in our lives and homes, and guard from it our sacred spaces and our abilities to actually converse, meditate, and reason.  May the God of all wisdom help us to recognize every day the blessings and dangers of the devices the ingenuity of man has brought into existence and to have the courage to make them serve us and mankind, instead of the other way around.

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Late Bloomers

We had a storm they called a derecho, a straight wind storm without an eye.  We are used to tornadoes in the Midwest, but this was more like a hurricane, only over land.  The next morning revealed that we had lost four trees or big chunks of them, and many limbs were strewn over our yard and the rest of the county.  Felled was a willow that had been weakened by a beaver, a maple that had formerly lost a big limb, and a white pine, totally uprooted.  The pine was in an area that sometimes floods, so it had no need to put down deep roots to reach its necessary water source. It seems that nature prunes and thins out, not only weaker branches, but whole trees to make room for stronger specimens that need to reach the sun.

Strangely, though, a whole patch of naked lilies are still standing on their leafless stems, stems filled with water like a thick straw.  These lilies are a mystery to me.  In spring they send out long, rich green leaves like other lilies.  But in a few weeks, the leaves wilt and die and become humus around the area where the bulbs have been planted.   Then, in hot August when everything else is wilting, up come naked stems, like giant moisture-filled drinking straws. 

These stems shoot two feet into the air, then produce a mass of buds that unfold into the most gorgeous and delicate pale pink lilies. Talk about late bloomers!  Behind our garden swing, rising above a carpet of hostas, there are these glorious lilies.  They are like spring in August!

The other lilies have long since finished blooming.  Even the enduring day lilies are by now waning into mostly seed pods.  Ah, but the naked lilies!  They are proudly standing tall and leafless on their watery stems, breathing joy into the hot summer.  And, amazingly, after last night’s  storm that took down a willow, a pine, and a maple, the naked lilies still stand!

Maybe I am to learn not to despair over late bloomers. They just might surprise me.  Just when it seems  they are never going to bloom, they rescue the dulling landscape with beauty to take your breath away!

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Bless This Marriage

I believe that life is sacred—all of it—because it is God’s currency of time, given to us to spend on this side of eternity.   The passages of our lives deserve to be marked by a sacred celebration and a renewed commitment to recognize what is eternal in every moment.  We need times to stop down and refocus on the “why” of life and to prioritize the way we are spending this precious gift we have been given.

Marriage is not only one of the most important passages of life, but also should be a holy sacrament, bringing together two people, two families, two histories, and two futures.  It is much more than a civil contract; it is a serious long-term commitment, because it marks the beginning of a new home, the natural habitat for human beings and their nurture to maturity physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

This blog (or vlog) and the two to follow will be audio/video blogs, celebrating three of the most significant passages of life:  marriage, the dedication of a new home, and the birth of a baby.  They will also be available in gift book form for sharing with friends who are celebrating these passages of life.

CLICK THE VIDEO BELOW TO WATCH AND LISTEN

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Thank God For Grandparents

Amy with her grandma Lela

Thank God for grandparents everywhere who love with perspective, and to grandchildren everywhere who so need such love.

Sometimes I think that love – to be it’s sweetest – must ripen on the family tree one generation beyond the parent stage.  Oh, parental love is tough – like a fruit picked partially green; it will take a lot of jostling.  But to be infused with the sweet juices of compassion, humor, and understanding, love needs a little ripening.

Someone has said the generation gap is only between succeeding generations.  Defenses seem to wane after that.  When you can’t tell your parents, you can always tell grandma.  If daddy can’t fix it, grandpa can.  And don’t we all deserve to have at least one person in our lives who thinks we’re the prettiest, the smartest, the cleverest, and the least flawed person on the face of the earth?

With environmentalist Lee in Colorado

Simon with is papaw Bill at Culver Academy

Let others warn, discourage, point out the pitfalls.  Grandparents are for encouraging, embracing, accepting and risking the moon.

Of course, grandparenting has changed.  Granny, these days, is seldom knitting in her rocker.  She is more likely to be racing her grandchildren down the street on her motor scooter or teaching them in-line skating.  Grandads are more likely showing their grandkids to speed-shift the convertible than to plow a straight furrow.  But grandparents still think you can, believe in the impossible, and take the time.  They may even, if you’re good, let you stay up late watching Gaither Homecoming videos!

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