Email Is A Brilliant Solution To Many Communication Problems.
If Paul Had Email
If Paul Had EmailEmail has become the easiest, fastest way to communicate with loved ones at a distance, and busy colleagues ten feet away. What did we do before email?
Before email we talked to each other and we wrote things down, two sources that created our oral and written histories. While email is a brilliant solution to many communication problems, this technology does have its limitations. A friend who happens to be a church historian posed one of those problems several years back: What are we losing in personal connectedness, and historical records of relationships, documented in electronic missives that are routinely evaporated with a click on the delete button?
What would have happened to the gospels if Matthew, Mark, Luke or John had had access to high speed internet email? People may have received the message more quickly, but would anyone have felt the need to save these words on their PC before moving onto the next message advertising a good deal on sacrificial animals down at that little shop outside the temple? What would we know of the epistles, the letters Paul wrote to the churches of Corinth, Rome, Galatia and Ephesus, and his colleagues Timothy and Titus? Would a church secretary or office administrator have glanced over them, forwarded them to the appropriate parties and then hit the delete button as well? Would we know these congregations and their lessons of faithful community building in the same way, or at all, if Paul had booted up his computer and dashed off a quick email or two?
My gratitude for the consideration of time and thought with which these Biblical texts came to us extends back to these words from Psalm 102:8: "Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet unborn may praise the Lord." I am grateful because memory and memories fade over time, and are reshaped by this dimming light, if we do not record events as they occur, or soon after. I am grateful because writing a letter is a different process than emailing. Emailing is quick, easy and can include up-to-the-minute details. That is its hallmark. Letters produced by hand are time consuming, somewhat laborious and not particularly efficient. But letters do create a framework around paying attention to the details at hand, and in heart and faith. There is time to consider the ingredients individually, and as a rich, synergistic blend. I am grateful for this legacy carried out from the Psalmist, to Paul, to us, because without it, we would not know nearly as much as we do about Paul as a leader in the early years of our faith, or about the communities of faith our of which our own have grown.
So, what do future generations have to rely on as their legacy from us? Email is here to stay, as well it should. It is a generous advantage of our modern world. But how do we want to make sure we do not break this ancient connection to our modern faith legacy? We have a responsibility to carry our faith forward, embodied in a way on which the next generation may build on as well.
Looking for Love September 27, 2005
Online dating services have solidly planted themselves into our culture as as one way to meet a variety of people from which to choose a mate. Say what you will about the old fashioned way of handling things, but many people are freely admitting to meeting their one and only via the internet. What ever your opinion of this new method of meet and greet, it does have its roots in the inherent desire of human beings to connect with one another, to create emotional intimacy and full, rich lives. Locating love isn't so much the difficulty as recognizing what love looks like before you begin the search.
For some powerfully descriptive terms of love we need look no further than I Corinthians 13:4-8a: "Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never ends;" While popular, memorable and frequently quoted, it is important to remember that these are words related to a congregation pitted against itself in working through what it meant to create a community of faith during a time in which there were no precedents on which to rely. That is what makes these words so powerful, their unlimited application in any human interaction, any human relationship in which true growth and development is desired. Whether nurturing a new church or a new relationship, it is a great skill to recognize what love looks like, what loving behavior truly is, in another person, and even more so, in ourselves.
Love is patient, kind and rejoices when things go right. Think about the relationships in your life and those you observe as you move through your daily routines. Do you see people taking time to help someone with their packages or listen to a request without tapping a foot or looking at their watch every few seconds? Do you notice couples sharing words, but coming to a peaceful, cooperative decision? Those love behaviors. Love also bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things, and never ends. That is not to say that love is foolish or blind, but that love recognizes the truth, the faith in another person as paramount to the relationship shared. When loving behaviors build the foundation of a life, those behaviors extend out like branches from a tree reaching for the sun, and nurture everyone and everything with whom they come in contact. The patience, kindness and joy in the world going the right way isn't clutched only for themselves, but is shared openly. Love becomes the lifestyle choice, that choice from which all other choices are made.
While some Biblical passages can take some time to understand, to set into historical context to be able to grasp their meaning, what love isn't is very clear. It isn't loving to be jealous or boastful, arrogant or rude. Loving behaviors are not defined by irritability or resentment, and clearly not by rejoicing when something goes wrong. Again, take a moment to consider these behaviors and when you may have noticed them in other people's relationships, or your own. Have you seen someone shout down a sales clerk until they got what they wanted? Have you witnessed spouses snapping at one another, or believing a crowning achievement was to show their partner as wrong in a disagreement? Not particularly attractive, and rather uncomfortable to be around, isn't it? When you stop to consider this, would love defined by God's terms in any relationship be uncomfortable to be around or in?
What Paul wrote to the church at Corinth about interacting with each other in a loving fashion is also relevant today in how we choose to present ourselves as loving people in any type or relationship. It is usually easier to find loving people when we recognize loving behaviors, in other people, and in ourselves.
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