Our lives are more connected than ever before.... aren't they?
Close your eyes, take yourself back to early on in human history. It’s a time long long ago, a time before the internet, before x-factor, before books or any system has been devised to record thoughts and ideas. Imagine, you’ve had a great idea.
Something incredible has just happened. How do you share or get a perspective on it? You can’t record the experience in your journal and reflect. You can’t write an article so other people can find out what you’ve learned. There’s no facebook to announce that “James has just had a great idea” and three people aren’t going to instantly ‘like’ it.
You’re living thousands of years ago, if you want to make sure you keep this idea or spread your experience you need to share it with people. People directly interact with people and pass it around between each other. Your only choice is to be there physically. Talk about it, hear other people’s perspectives, let an idea grow in conversation, pass on your experiences.
Open your eyes and get back to the present. The written word changed how we think and interact. Reading and writing means that ideas and thoughts can be fixed in time and space. An idea can exist outside of a person. We can write ideas down, read about events, think about what’s been recorded without interacting with anyone else. Information can be passed on remotely. Physical presence is no longer essential.
Today, we’d probably like to think that we’re more connected than ever. I can do all my shopping online. I can send a short message and connect with anyone, anywhere in the world, in a second. Thanks to twitter and facebook I can follow my friend’s lives all day every day. It’s true, we are more connected than ever, but are we present? I never actually need to walk into a shop, so I’ll miss the opportunity to talk to a shop assistant. I don’t need to go to the post office to send a message so there’s no chance I’ll bump into someone on the way there. I’m less likely to knock on someone’s door to catch up when they’ve shared what they’re up to every hour today with their 397 digital ‘friends’. We live in a time of distant connectedness.
Distant connectedness. Was it like that with God once? He revealed himself in a burning bush, taught through tablets of stone and spoke through prophets but ultimately, God knew that nothing could beat presence. So, God came as a person, with us in Jesus, Emmanuel, because nothing beats being there, physically. When Jesus left earth, he left us to be here, to be his body, his physical presence in the world.
There’s nothing wrong with the written word. Facebook is fine but sometimes we need to be there in person. Sometimes only our physical presence will do, anyone who’s had a distance relationship will tell you that. I think we need to just be there more often. This week let’s knock on someone’s door for a cup of tea and catch up. When we’re with a friends let’s switch off our phones and be present in the moment. The student life stage probably represents the greatest opportunity for being there people’s lives that you’ll ever have.
One of my friends just finished a dissertation that looked at attitudes to Christianity. It emerged that many students feel that Christians always have a hidden agenda. “Come and get some free food (but listen to this talk). Come to this fun event and hang out (but we have something we really want to tell you)”. I wonder whether it’d because our generation needs more relational capital to trust. People need to know that we’re authentic, to understand we’re really up to. We need to invest physical time with people to build relationships, real time. Sitting, talking, eating meals, walking around, sharing stories, thoughts, ideas and experiences. Look at Jesus and the disciples, these activities are a great Christian tradition! Maybe if we live more like this, even if there is a sub-heading to ‘free Pizza’ people probably aren’t going to mind as much because they’ll know what we’re really about. We care for them as real, present people.
Presence; let’s try and be there more.
