Petra Bosma on dialogue

Petra Bosma has a great piece at Christianity Today, emphasizing the importance of face-to-face dialogue in our technocratic world. She writes:

"Real conversation uses different skills than online communication. It requires the participants to have patience with each other, and to reveal more of themselves than they would online. We dumb ourselves down in online conversation. We depend on sound bites. We expect responses faster and are more likely to relay only the polished version of what we are truly experiencing. Though social media consistently requests status updates, rarely does it require us to post anything of depth... ideas, especially important, difficult, maybe treasonous ones, need time, care, and interaction: around dinner tables, holding cups of coffee, or holed up in burntout bunkers."

DWebb on information overload

A gem on Noisetrade today: Free acoustic download of Derek Webb's new album (limited time offer).

Derek Webb is special to me. In college he guided me into a spirituality of humility with She Must and Shall Go Free (as well as leading me into the folk/acoustic realm). As a college drop-out, his House Show live CD led me into a rich theology of Gospel and Church, while his I See Things Upside Down led me through the necessary lament of having left the Christian community at Kenyon. For awhile I thought it was John Piper who had most influenced me in my understanding of "Reformed" Christianity, but I recently realized that Derek Webb was very much more. His five solas tattoo led to a framed copy on my desk.

Regardless of his weird latest albums (I have my beef with Stockholm Syndrome), he's a genius and prophet in his own right. The acoustic version of his new album captures what he does so well, combining great melodies with songwriting and critical acumen*, and it's good for an old folky fan like myself.

On the album he has a song called "I feel everything" which hints at the struggle for sanity in our age of stimulus and information. It is a quiet song of lament/confession, rather bleak in its outlook, but an honest introspection of the senselessness into which so much of our consumption leads us. In this age of information and entertainment obsession, it can feel hard to think and be. Consumism quickly reduces us into subjects incapable of doing anything but wanting (if even that). Webb captures the pain of that in his song.

Download the album on Noisetrade while it's still available. You can listen to the song here(I Feel Everything). But most importantly, step away from the barrage of information and simply be before God in solitude and silence.

"I feel everything" by Derek Webb

i am not sure i want this to take, what it's taking
but that just seems to be the choice, i am making
mother this is all i ever wanted
now how do i get back to where there isn't everything, only you

i cannot hear because i hear everything
i cannot see because i see everything
i cannot feel because i feel everything

it is not peace i find, it is not satisfaction
it's not the life i always dreamed or imagined
it is not wisdom, it is not strength, it is not control
it is a promise meant to quell my every fear, yet leave me cursed

i've nothing left, no life or death, no will that's free
i have no way now to explain, what's come over me
i'm just a body overwhelmed, and lying still
a casualty of knowing what i want and wanting what i know

* a word I learned yesterday playing the GRE Vocab test at www.memrise.com

Behold! March 2012

Spirituality
I really appreciated this piece by Russell Moore; oh that all Christian writers was so skilled in combining sound theology, pastoral wisdom, and vivid expression.
I also really appreciated DLM's piece on friendship as advocacy.


Technology
McSweeny's has some good parodies of social media and blogging.
NPR uncovers one reason Facebook is in some ways anti-community: it helps make the popular more popular and the lonely feel more lonely.


Random
M. Nenadov summarizes a seminar which concludes that "there are basically no compelling economic reasons for development aid to be successful."
NYTimes writes up on Guaraní, which--according to my New Years Resolutions-- I am learning this year.
The Amazing Race passed through Paraguay.
Eric Peters hosted a listening party for his new CD at the Rabbit Room: there were some really nice songs, and Eric's barren honesty is so heartening.

Behold! 2-21-2012

Behold!: some noteworthy pieces over the last couple of days:

Technology, society, spirituality

• Jason Allen has a piece at TGC about if Facebook tempts you, especially on the dangers of envy in a social media world.
• Dana Goldstein writes that homeschooling violates progressive values. Frankly, I didn't realize that in our postmodern world you could still describe things as "progressive"... hasn't "progress" been debunked?
• D.L.M. echoes my disdain for politics in the light of the Kingdom of God
• NPR reports on a certain Open Source Ecology farm, which is the kind of thing I (and probably D.L.M.) could really get excited about.

Random

• Nuns run. I'm tempted sign up as a shadow runner, but won't.
• Andrew Peterson shares more about songwriting, and even offers up a new song.

Fatherhood

• Tim Keller's wife writes about why the city is a wonderful place to raise children, also at TGC. My mother and I were raised in the suburbs, my wife and father in the countryside. I've occasionally worried about living in the a huge metropolitan area with a kid, but Mrs. Keller puts a good turn to things. Not that all of the cool stuff on the list at the end actually applies to Asunción, but there are some things.

Why I have a cheap cell phone

"The unfortunate thing, I think, is that part of what's happening is that we've lost our sense of actually experiencing things. We're just constantly, constantly recording things." - George Clooney during an NPR interview

I've thought about this for a good many years, especially every time I go to Iguaçu Falls in Brazil and observe how most visitors spend all their time snapping photos and recording videos. It seems no one is actually looking at the Falls, let alone giving time for their body to take in the beauty. No matter how amazing your camera is, you can't capture one and half miles of waterfalls in a picture. And if you spend all your time trying to capture a photograph, you might not even get the slightest sense of the breath-taking character of the falls.

I'm not against photos. It's nice to have some to share with friends, to put on your desktop background, to bring to mind fond memories. But I'd much prefer vivid memories of quality time lived out in the presence of great masterpieces (be these mountains or artwork or personalities).

It's important to think about why and how one wants to use technology. The trend of this our technological age is that these devices hold an ever more powerful sway over us. I, however, want to utilize technology according to my purposes, not be guided by its ever greater capabilities.

On the internet and intentionality

I’m back with an online “presence,” after taking a month of internet abstinence to reflect on the meaning of all this. Last year I found myself caught up in Facebook and my list of RSS feeds in such a way that I would describe as lustful. Lust in the sense that Oswald Chambers taught me to see, this desire for immediate stimulus and gratification, that ends up emasculating one’s soul. I’m convinced that one of the keys to human flourishing is in self-denial of such lusts and the training of one’s soul for slow, deep delights. And yet, there I was, hanging on the edge of the most frivolous updates, seeking meaning in a new post, wasting time and mismanaging my soul. It got to the point where I didn’t even read any of these interesting sites I was following, I just quickly skimmed it for some sort of intellectual or spiritual stimulus.

Clearly this was not a path I wanted to continue. Deep, reflective thought and reading has always been an important part of who I am. To let that be replaced by (un-)social media and RSS (does-not-)feeds would not contribute to my growth and pleasure. So following the Christian tradition, I cancelled my RSS subscriptions and deactivated my Facebook account in a sort of fast. Fasts are powerful to reveal to us our underlying motives and unfilled desires, and they serve as opportunities to reevaluate our priorities.

One of my constant concerns is inspired in the Apostle Pauls’ resolute “I refuse to let anything have power over me” (1 Corinthians 6:12, CEV). I want my will to be robust and tenacious, unreduced by sedatives and distractions. I want my psychological health to be independent of material goods and outside stimuli (aside: I sometimes worry that I have a certain dependency on yerba mate). Time away from the internet reminded me that life is just as abundant when I don’t read every last narcissistic expression of my acquaintances, or keep up to date on the latest theological disputes in the blogging world. Moreover, I was reminded that unless I dialogue reflectively with this deluge of information, I will be undesirably molded by it. I need to read less and more deeply, and I need to write my thoughts out (with paper and pen).

One of the better news stories I heard on NPR during January was this author interview with Clay Johnson about the subtle but ruinous dangers of our information diet, and how easy it is to become closed-minded. He notes that “what choice of information gives us is the ability to misinform ourselves in all kinds of new ways.” I am reminded as well of Marva Dawn’s admonition to avoid becoming a liar by a L.I.A.R. (low information-action ratio). What good is it to know, know, know more and more if I’m inert in regards to such “knowledge?” Dear St. John would say that this is indeed no knowledge as all, as knowing and doing are so inseparable in his theology.

So I’m back online, but I purpose to be more modest and intentional about it, by reading more deliberately and writing more thoughtfully. I pray that this information diet would lead me to relate with greater loyalty to those who surround me, and to act with greater faithfulness in service to the world.