As I haphazardly flipped through a stack of GRE flashcards thirty minutes prior to test time (the second time I'd looked through them mind you), my mind froze on the word transitory and its meaning has yet to pass out of my consciousness (ha, irony).
Transitory.
Zoom in: My time left in Charlottesville is oh so painfully transitory. 5 days and counting down. . .
Zoom out: We are a people who live transitory lives.
Before you jump the gun and begin quoting one of the four times in Psalms (Psalm 39:5 & 11; Psalm 62:9; Psalm 144:4) that the author states that "man is but a breath" track with me for a minute. (We'll get there later.)
Globalization. Industrialization. Technologicalization (made that one up). We are a people on the go globally. Whether you're flying to Hong Kong, on a train through Austria, or sailing on the coast of Chile, we are moving, changing, and engaging in transitory relationships. Brief relationships. Relationships that tend to pass away as I board the plane for New Mexico and you drive to Maine. As I come to grips with the passing of my time in Charlottesville, I can't help but wonder if all of our hustle and bustle has aided and abetted our inability to engage in lifelong relationship.
Qualifiers: Yes, people do have lifelong relationships. There are people in my life who do not share my DNA whom I have known since I was itty bitty. Marriage is (should be) a lifelong relationship. I'm not denying the existence of lifelong relationship. . .
However, I do wonder if our advancements are a detriment to our relationships. With on-the-go lifestyles and pocketed technology, I don't have to sit down with Lucy and ask her how she's doing. I don't even have to write her a letter and wait for a return. I can check her Facebook status while I'm in the car at a red light (I do not condone doing anything while driving). I'm ok with my relationship with Lucy being transitory because, thanks to Twitter, I'll always have some idea as to what she is doing. And as long as I have some idea as to what her yoga class was like last week via her status update, we're still friends. . . right?
We are overly connected yet we are tragically unengaged.
Having read through the Gospels, I don't believe this is how Jesus and His followers did life. Of course, Jesus didn't have the opportunity to fly to Hong Kong or tweet the Great Commission, so I can't confidently state that he would not have utilized Twitter had he been given the opportunity. I can, however, confidently state that Christ's inner circle of relationships were deep, engaged, and cohesive. Jesus did life with his confidants. The disciples ate together, slept in sleeping bags next to each other, learned together, failed together, and were transformed by Jesus together. As iron sharpens iron, one disciple sharpened another. When they were sent out, they went in pairs, like socks. The journey of transformation was done together, face-to-face, in engaged relationship.
Of course, as Christ's season on earth came to an end (for the time being), they were asked to go out onto all the earth and make disciples of all nations. Most went in pairs as they had learned to do previously. In some instances, they journeyed independently. However, they still engaged one another. John didn't have the luxury of checking MySpace to sneak a peek at Peter's recent post on the development of the Christian church in Antioch. He was forced to engage. Letters were written and responses were eagerly anticipated (for months).
Life is transitory. Things are always passing away, whether its my time in Charlottesville or my time here on earth. That doesn't mean we have to treat our relationships as transitory. That doesn't give us the ok to disengage and utilize our new social networks to check-in on Lucy's life by clicking through her recent photo album uploads. Maybe there are some relationships which are meant to be watered and nurtured for a lifetime? Maybe there are some people who will walk through the ups and downs of life with me and continue to be used as a source of grace, truth, and love even when our season of proximity has come to a close? Maybe its up to me to engage these relationships with active participation instead of social-network voyeurism? What would our relationships, our ministries even, look like if we utilized the blessings of technology to engage more regularly in each others lives?
If Paul can send a letter to Timothy and wait for a response, I should be able to make a phone call. Relationships flux with seasons and there are times when certain relationships should come to an end, but what if as I'm in the airport on the way to Portland I call my best friend in Texas and share the epiphany I had that morning about the woman at the well?
As we transit, transition, transfer, and travel transcontinentally, my relationships- the Jonathan and David variety- do not have to pass away.
. . . and, in case you are wondering, the word transitory did not show up on my GRE.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brain.html?src=me&ref=technology
ReplyDeletethe new york times agrees with you! This idea of technologization is something i've been thinking of for a bit and trying to figure out my thoughts...
It's interesting - technology. I'm an engineer, right? And yet, I am not obsessed with progress. Instead, it is one of the worst and best things that could have ever happened to us. It's like the Tower of Babel, really. We do things to show that we can do them. We build our greatness in the ability to shrink computer chips to the micrometer scale. We display our wonder in satellites and space probes and in plunging down in to the depths of the ocean. And what is the effect? We assume that no pipe at 5000 ft under the surface of the ocean can burst, that we can't fail. We are deceived by our own greatness, and lose sight of everything and anything else. We climb the tower of progress and say, "Screw everyone else." We have lost something.
ReplyDeleteIf we as Christians don't make a conscious effort to retain the power of intentionality, we fade into the backdrop of progress. I balk at change for many reasons, but with every passing day I realize that change, technology, progress, doing things because we can, is not always desirable, and honestly, very rarely desirable.
And then I struggle with this point, because how much of progress/technology is God-pleasing and how much is God-replacing? Is it always one or the other?