How Would Jesus Call?
A Column for the Dallas Morning
News
 
By Ken Myers
 
An
article in the April issue of Wired magazine makes some frightening
predictions about the dangers of three cutting-edge technologies. Though Wired
is better known for treating the latest gadgets and high-tech systems
either with irreverent glee or awe-filled reverence, this article, written by
Bill Joy, cofounder and chief scientist of Sun Microsystems (and thus a high
priest among the digerati), sounds more apocalyptic than messianic. Joy warns
that future developments in genetic engineering, robotics, and nanotechnology
(the development of microscopic machines) may pose a serious threat to human existence.
All three technologies aim to create self-replicating mechanisms.
 
Joy’s
article makes some very serious points that ought to be of particular concern
to theologians and religious ethicists. Even if his most ominous fears prove to
be as ill-founded as Y2K hysteria, his concern for attending to the unintended consequences
of technology is instructive.
 
With
few exceptions, religious people have not given enough thoughtful attention to
the social and cultural consequences of emerging technologies. When technical
devices are used for obviously immoral purposes (e.g., pornography on the
Internet), Christians express concern. But church leaders and theologians give
far too little attention to the subtle ways in which technologies reshape our
lives and thereby re-configure our moral understanding of the world.
 
Technologies
are usually developed to make a particular task more convenient, and
convenience is valuable. But it is not the only valuable thing, and it is up to
individuals and communities to determine when an increased level of convenience
is actually a hindrance to other human values.
 
Cell
phones, for example, make it easier for us to have immediate access to others
and to remain perpetually accessible. But certainly there are times when cell
phones should be turned off or left at home. Some restaurants now require
guests to disable their cell phones while dining. This shows respect for the
ambience of their dining rooms and honors the desire of other diners not to be
forced into the role of eavesdropper.
 
I’d
like to suggest that Christian people in particular give some attention to cell
phone etiquette. A thoughtful set of manners regarding cell phones could be a
small but significant way of reducing the sum total of dehumanizing behavior in
American culture. Such manners could demonstrate the high value Christians
place on embodiment, expressed in our doctrines of Creation, Incarnation, and
Resurrection.
 
What
could cell phones possibly have to do with the Incarnation? Both involve the
significance of physical, embodied presence before others. The presence of
another person before us is a kind of moral claim, asking for the recognition
appropriate to a fellow human being. Likewise, when we make ourselves present
to others, we are showing respect. Thus when we visit someone in the hospital
or in prison (a situation Jesus alludes to in Matthew 25) instead of just
phoning or sending flowers, we demonstrate by our presence a higher level of
regard for their well-being.
 
The
idea of presence is an important one in Biblical religion. In his second
letter, the Apostle John writes, “I have much to write to you, but I do
not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you
face to face.” The Church is called the ekklesia, the assembly, the
place where believers are present to one another to encourage one another to love
and good works.
 
By
contrast, holding a telephone conversation while walking down the street or up
an aisle at the supermarket pointedly ignores the presence of others. The
importance of physical presence is thus de-valued. It also poses a kind of challenge
to passers-by.
 
In an
earlier, less hectic time, when you wanted to make a phone call, you isolated
yourself temporarily in a telephone booth (ask your parents if this is an
unfamiliar term). This guaranteed privacy for yourself but also spared strangers
the awkwardness of hearing half of your conversation, especially if the
conversation involved intimate personal details. The more primitive technology
imposed limits on where your body was when you made a call, but certain notions
about presence and
boundaries
were also encouraged.
 
Just
because we are now able to make calls anywhere anytime doesn’t mean that we
should. Whether or not we should is a question that, to my knowledge, hasn’t
even been raised.
 
To
treat the presence of another person with indifference is not just rude. It is
dehumanizing. Bill Joy’s dire predictions about technologies destroying
humanity may not come to pass. But there are already many instances of the
thoughtless use of technologies diminishing humanity. The unexpected and untested
convenience of cell phones has brought us into territory previously uncharted
by convention. The devices come with technical instructions, but no guidance
about their well-mannered
use.
Encouraged by a theology of human dignity, embodiment, and the value of
presence, Christians have the resources to make some small but notable
difference in this cyborg culture. Resistance is not futile.

Kerry Wood, former ace pitcher for the Cubs, has taken an incredible pay cut to return to the Cubbies on a one year contract. More info here.

A great light has gone out. Come spring, I will miss the radio voice that consistently expressed the emotions of the listening fan. His voice was truly our voice. Listening to the Cubs radio broadcast was like watching the game with a close friend who is sharing the lows and highs of such a turbulent ball club. I am thankful for so many years of this gift of summer. I am thankful to have once spent two and a half innings in the same room with this man. I am sad that my child will grow up in a world where he isn’t. I am thankful to have the job of teaching them about our beloved “Number 10.” Ronnie, we miss you. It won’t be the same without you. You will be in our thoughts, in the words of Eddie Vedder, “..when the day comes with that last winning run, and I’m crying and covered in beer..I’ll look to the sky and know I was right to think someday we’ll go all the way.” And if someone hasn’t said it yet, this one is for Ronnie: THIS IS THE YEAR!

No apps. No GPS. No endless access to Twitter, Facebook, or iTunes Ping. Simple. Elegant. Welcome back, old friend. It has been too long.

Applying Scripture to our individual experience is difficult for each of us, often as much because we fail to understand the signifigance of our own situation, the context in which we are applying it, as because we fail to understand the original, objective meaning of the text. We live in complex patterns of need, of opportunity, and of sin, and the inference we really ought to draw from Scripture is often the most difficult to see, because of the complexity and sin in our lives. This is why we need teachers and the fellowship of the Saints

-From All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes by Ken Myers.

O GOD, who hast prepared for those who love thee such good things as pass man’s understanding; Pour into our hearts such love toward thee, that we, loving thee above all things, may obtain thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

-Collect appointed for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity

The Lord has prepared good things for those that love Him, as has been made evident in this past year. May 4th, 2009, in the midst of a personal spiritual breaking point, I first began praying the Morning and Evening Offices. I attended my first Anglican Mass the Wednesday before Whitsunday, 2009. In July of the same year–in the season of Trinity–I attended the Anglican Way Institute (Anglicon) in Plano, Texas. While in Texas I met Nicole, whom less than a year later, became my wife.

This Trinity season marks a year of Incredible change in my life. It marks the completion of a year-long commitment to living a monastic lifestyle. Becoming a monk might not be practical for many of you, and neither was it for me. I didn’t take formal Holy Orders, but I was intentional about where I lived, and the role the local parish would have in this lifestyle. This commitment fostered not just change, but a rich fullness that I hadn’t experienced in quite a while. Coming home to the Church “Ancient” and meeting my wife were the bricks of last year. Everything else was mortar, leaving not even enough room between brick and mortar to slide a sheet of paper through. Our parish priest asked if this past year has felt like a year (observing that time often flies by when we are busy).  I can answer without pause “yes”, the previous 365 days I have lived slowly in the present.

Some of the aforementioned mortar is composed of my quest to reclaim my education. This has been a tedious endeavor, breeding patience despite my impatience. God has blessed Nicole and I with a complete set of the Great Books of the Western World. We have begun to read the set, starting with the first volume The Great Conversation by Robert Hutchins. This, companioned with Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book, is proving to be a great start to the Great Books. More on self-education as time goes by.

I want to finish up this post by saying the greatest investment I have made this past year has been the implementation of a structure or rule of life that is found in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. Allowing the liturgies of Western  Christianity to permeate my being and placing myself under the spiritual authority of the Church (by way of a parish priest) have been monumental in growing towards my deification. We as humans–and maybe more so as American humans–have no desire to be ruled. Ironically, we are slaves, no mater the master (sin or God).

“Who are these three persons: the shepherd, the woman, the father? Is not Christ the Shepherd, the Church the woman, and God the Father? Christ Who took upon Himself your sins bears you upon His own Body; the Church searches for you; the Father receives you back. As a shepherd He brings us back, as a mother He looks for us, as a father He clothes us. First, mercy, second, intercession, third, reconciliation; each to each; the Redeemer comes to our aid, the Church intercedes for us, the Creator restores us to Himself. It is the same divine mercy in each operation; but grace varies according to our merits.”

-From St Ambrose’s sermon on St. Luke’s Gospel, Chapter 15

Mesquite, the city where my Fiance sleeps, sustained a spectacular slew of snow.

Maggie, Nicole’s new vehicle, resting in the white snow banks of North Texas.