a culture of communication

For a few months now, I have been reflecting on a certain issue (which either means that it's important, or that I'm obsessing). But after a trip to the mall last week with my volleyball team, my reflections were once more brought to mental center stage. There was not a moment of that shopping trip that someone was not text messaging someone else. Actually, most of the time multiple people were texting. And one individual never stopped texting.
I keep thinking about all the ways that we, as twenty-first century Americans, can keep in touch these days. There is text messaging (of course), blogging, facebook, myspace, instant messaging, phone conversations, and email. There are phones on which you can do all of the above. All of this in addition to the regular old telephones and snail mail. And I just sit back and wonder: is this power of communication a curse or a blessing? An important advance of society or an ugly disfiguration?

Back in the day, you only knew so many people. You knew your immediate family, your neighbors, your church family, your schoolmates, your butcher, and your great-uncle Arty. As a man, when you left school, you got to know coworkers. As a woman, you operated within a sphere of homemaking. If you saw your old school friends again, that was nice, but you couldn't possibly keep in touch with many of them. It just wasn't done. And when the next door neighbors Herbert and Matilda moved out of town, you just lost touch with them. That, I think, is the way a community should work. When we leave one community, we must become a part of another. We simply cannot cling to old communities as we change, and as our physical or social situations change.

However, I'm not saying that we should simply cut off every single relationship due to a change in physical location or social circles. I do think that some relationships are good to maintain. For example, it isn't even an option for me to fall out of contact with my family while I'm at college. They are a permanent part of my community, and keeping in touch with them is made so much easier because of the internet. I am also blessed to have a crew of very close friends with whom I can communicate quickly and easily. These are relationships which I will spend some time maintaining. But I must also remember that I am no longer a part of my high school community. I am no longer a part of the community of my hometown. I have a new community to be a part of. A community in this city, a community here at college, here in my dorm, in my hall, with my roommate. While technology enables me to maintain a few ties to my old community, it is my current community which I must primarily serve.

I guess I am saying that advances in communication are middle things, things which can be used for either good or bad. A gun, for example, can kill a charging beast (good), can provide food for a family (good), and can be an effective instrument of murder (bad). The gun itself is not inherently good or bad, but is a middle thing. Thus, it is up to us, the ones in control of the gun, to use it for good and not bad. That is how middle things work.
Advances in communication technology can be used to keep a family, or two or three best friends together. They can be used to transmit important information quickly and conveniently. However, they can also be used to dangerously enlarge your social sphere, involving you in too many relationships to reasonably or sanely maintain. They can shift your focus from real, personal relationships with those around you to half-hearted, impersonal relationships with those who were once around you. New forms of communication have begun to replace personal interaction, thus warping the concept of community.

As a final thought, (and also a proof that this isn't just me being a few fries short of a happy meal), I would urge you all to consider the implications of some of your core beliefs. Do you believe that you are where you are for a reason? Do you believe that God has placed you in a particular group of people so that you can serve them? If you neglect those around you in order to maintain relationships with those who are not around you, isn't that a bit of a slap in God's face? Just something to think about. You didn't think God's sovereignty and providence related to texting, did you?

They do.

If you are a facebooker, myspacer, blogger, or texter, communicate away! But always be sure to keep your priorities set, serving primarily the community that God has placed you in right now.