I begin this week's 'additional resources' with some additional reflections on the way technology impacts relationships today.
On Sunday, I shared a couple of images of folks being together but not interacting one with another but, instead, absorbed in their smart phones.
Sometimes it hits me really hard how recent a phenomenon the smart is. The iPhone celebrated its 17th birthday this past summer. Our son Donovan is less than 2 years older than iPhone. Basically, he and his generation have never known a world without smart phones. They are the last such generation in human history (unless, perhaps, you are one of the natives living on that remote, isolated Sentinel Island in the Indian Ocean).
On the other hand, old timers like Christina and me actually grew up with dial telephones and their long, often tangled cords. When I was old enough to make a phone call, I insisted on using the more efficient, less time consuming push button phone. That was technological progress! Right?
Well, now I have a phone in my pocket that has literally 1 million times more computing power than the guidance supercomputer NASA used on the Apollo Missions and a screen many times sharper and more detailed than the first Hi Def TVs of roughly 20 years ago.
And as fast as the technology has progressed, so fast has it also dramatically changed the ways we relate one to another.
We often prefer text messages or email to a phone call or an in person meeting--both more personally rich media.
We have an increasingly wide range of ‘friends’ or ‘followers’ on social media…but might not be able to pick out those people’s actual faces from a crowd, because all we know are the images they have uploaded online. We otherwise have no direct, face to face contact with them! And though these media can help connect us with people in far off places…can enrich our connections with others…isn’t it also often the case that, as the saying goes, our contact is a mile wide and a thimble deep?
What’s worse, research shows we just as often get caught up in projecting unrealistic images of beauty, health and success to the onlooking world. There are shocking statistics of teenage depression and anxiety disorders linked to social media usage because everyone else’s life appears so much more perfect than your own.
Real faces, however, have zits and pimples. Wrinkles and crow’s feet. For real faces are actually an amazingly complex interface for effecting sophisticated relational and emotional connections one person with another. And real faces do so with a speed, immediacy and undeniability that cannot be replicated by computers. We say that the eyes are the window to the soul, and so it is that the smile on my lips is complemented by the glint in my eye and those crows’ feet to signal the sincerity of my delight when I am genuinely happy to see you. Researchers call that a Duchenne Smile. It’s a real thing. And we all immediately, instinctively know it. Real joy on a real face.
Instead, it seems that our society is increasingly comfortable exchanging the rich, multi-sensory, immediate experience of being present one to another, face to face, for the flattened out, mediated world of technology. We all have been in one of those pictures sometime.
And I suspect we are more miserable as a result.
Now don’t get me wrong. I myself am a techie. I appreciate and use—a lot—the amazing computing power in the palm of my hand. But how often do we, today, choose the technological over the embodied forms relating one to another? And does the tech truly serve us and our relationships, or do we, increasingly, serve the tech? I am often reminded of the relational perils of the technology by how easy it is to misunderstand and get into conflict with others online, simply by the absence of vocal tone and inflection—and facial expression! If I had a dollar for every time online I mistook someone’s sarcasm for sincerity, I would be a rich man sitting on a beach in the Bahamas right now!
If this context is increasingly our world, our church’s mission statement is again quite counter-cultural! To stress relationship is, in a biblical framework, to stress embodied, incarnate relationships one with another. The God we serve loved us so much he did what? He Himself came in the flesh to be one of us, among us. "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). God now has a face. And it is a face which radiates the Father's love and joy--His delight in--us His adoptive children. Just like it did upon His only begotten son Jesus: "This is my beloved son in whom I am well-pleased."
God could have chosen to write us messages merely in his creation. In the starry heavens above or the moral law within, as the German philosopher Immanuel Kant put it. No, instead, He acted in human history in an amazingly personal and joyful way in Jesus!
Recently, I have been exploring the writings of Dr. James Wilder and his associates, who have done ground-breaking work on the neuropsychology of the Christian spiritual life. For Wilder, joy is not only a fruit of the Spirit, but it is the 'fuel' that runs the human psyche. And the wonderful things, the believer's life in Christ is--or can be--a life filled with joy.
Here is a great overview of some of Wilder's key insights about joy.
Joy is an interpersonal, deeply relational emotion. It activates parts of the brain responsible for character development and behavior change. Wilder argues that "the brain is more deeply changed by whom it loves (who brings me joy) than by what it thinks." When joy accompanies any behavior or experience, your brain encodes it more quickly and deeply than if it were merely ok. And joy also has the capacity to heal and restore parts of the brain that have been damaged by stress, anxiety or trauma.
The problem is: our society today has so many 'joy substitutes' readily available to us. Like sweets and processed, carbohydrate dense foods. Like the dopamine rush of someone 'liking' your social media post. Like highly sexualized imagery in advertising or pornography.
What can do to restore and build up joy?
We can gather to worship! That often is a joyful experience--especially our music and our time around the LORD's Table. And since that is a communal experience of joy, we also bond more deeply together with Christ.
We can also build up joy interpersonally by thanking and appreciating the people around us.
Recently, I had our staff members go around the table and each one share something they appreciated about the other--a thanksgiving or a praise for who they are and what they have done.
You can also practice this regularly in your prayer life. Sometimes when I find myself in the spiritual doldrums--or even worse, not particularly joyful in the LORD--I force myself to begin naming things I have thankful for. This has happened many times: by about 10-15 items in, I feel a sense of joy welling up inside me, directed towards the LORD!
Try it also this Thanksgiving around you dinner table: Ask everyone to stop and think of 2 or 3 things they are thankful for. Then go around the table, each time having each person share one thing. Even better: have them name things about other people seated at the table! If you go 3 times around the table, I guarantee you will leave that dinner more joyful than when you sat down. It's certainly a lot better than talking about the recent presidential election!!!
Final practical suggestion here: Consider times when you intentionally disconnect from devices in order to be present, face to face, with others. Did you know that smiling at another person while looking them in the eyes increases joy? We all experience this in some form, but you might not recognize it, it often happens so quickly in interpersonal relationships. But it is true, and if you are intentional about it, you can also get the joy of knowing you are doing 'pro-joy' activities!
Notice how all of these are inter-personal. They are most effective if they are direct, face-to-face encounters. A Zoom or FaceTime call is a poorer substitute.
Let me leave you with two questions to ponder:
How else can you increase joy in your life?
How else in our church life?
I would love to hear you thoughts. Email me!
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