A Digital Dilemma

Tonight, as I was killing a little time, I deliberately opted for non-required reading - in other words, having nothing to do with class. I grabbed a book of essays by a "technophile" (a label I can identify with) and came across the following words:

I'd like to think that computers are neutral, a tool like any other, a hammer that can build a house or smash a skull. But there is something in the system itself, in the formal logic of programs and data, that recreates the world in its own image. Like the rock-and-roll culture, it forms an irresistible horizontal country that obliterates the long, slow, old cultures of place and custom, law and social life. We think we are creating the system for our own purposes. We believe we are making it in our own image. We call the microprocessor the "brain"; we say the machine has "memory." But the computer is not really like us. It is a projection of a very slim part of ourselves: that portion devoted to logic, order, rule, and clarity. It is as if we took the game of chess and declared it the highest order of human existence.

The fact that Ellen Ullman, the author of this passage, is a computer programmer by virtue of something not unlike a religious vocation added extra weight to these words. Something unfamiliar rose up in me: a resistance to technology. Great. Just what I needed: another tension.

I am tremendously grateful for the blog. Thanks to this whacky universe we call cyberspace, part of me gets to be in Slovakia with Matt and Diane. This crazy-busy college student inhabiting my flesh gets to hear from people he loves but rarely gets to see. Like Bruce, who scribbles out his missionary heart in the middle of a culture that sees itself as beyond the need for such people. What utter crap. If I'm honest, I have to admit I see a mission field half the time I look in the mirror.

Yet, as great as this is and as many doors as it opens, blogworld is just no substitute for so many things: The warmth of Gloria's smile as she waves at me across the sanctuary. Christi's motherly presence on my left in pre-service prayer. Judy's depth of insight that mixes with her wit in ways that call forth astounded laughter. The sense of deep care and centered purpose that Jan wears like a mantle. Heather's obvious delight in the minds and souls of the students God's given her to shepherd. The fierceness of Tim's embrace as we say goodbye after two hours of deep, authentic life-sharing at Dunn Brothers on a Wednesday night.

Tensions. I guess there are always more waiting to be entered into. Sometimes I feel painfully stretched like a guitar string. But what I'm wondering tonight is if the ultimate resolution to those tensions is the Person of Love... if the tensions exist solely to provide God an instrument on which to play the melody of His all-surpassing goodness...

Eh... another incomplete metaphor to add to my collection. Regardless, I felt like I needed to share all this tonight, and to make explicit the following reality: Whether our connection is live and in person or mainly digital, I love you all beyond the power of words to capture, and am so blessed to lift you before God in thanksgiving.

Soli Deo Gloria. Fiat Lux (for those who've asked, it's Latin for "let there be light")!