By Our Own Devices?

High school graduations are right around the corner.  For the past three decades, I have watched young church members from the communities where I have served receive their diplomas and move on to the next chapter of life.  It does bring a person back to their own rite of passage known as high school graduation.  My graduation from Greenway High School in Coleraine, Minnesota was a big moment.  I watched my three older brothers graduate, go to work at the local paper mill, get a car and go to college.  I could not wait! 

So, I wax a bit of nostalgia around this time of year, just like in September when school starts all over again.  So many things have changed over the years.  It’s crazy when you think about it.  I can list the things we didn’t have - no internet, no devices, no smartphones, no computers.  We had rotary phones and still used the party line (google it).  Cable tv?  What was that?  Who needed cable tv when we only had three channels?  And one of the channels came in focus only when someone had to turn the antenna toward the location of the station!  We listened to the radio or played the 45’s - and if we were lucky, we had an eight track in our car.  You haven’t lived until you listened to an eight track.

I know.  Many of you know the list of things we didn’t have and the things we did have.  One of the things which has changed is the comic strip.  I used to read the Sunday comics from the Duluth News Tribune.  Dennis the Menace, Blondie and Dagwood Bumstead, the gang from Peanuts, Beetle Bailey,  Prince Valiant, and Dick Tracy.  That last one intrigues me because of one thing that Dick Tracy had which was a precursor of things of today: the two way wrist watch.  Introduced first in 1946: it was a two-way voice radio that could only receive and transmit audio.  Twenty years later it was updated by adding a small video screen to view contacts.  Little did anyone know that we were looking at the first smartphone. 

There are so many devices we have which supposedly make our lives a lot easier.  I took a quick inventory of the tech items I have in my possession:  desktop and laptop computer, smartphone, iPad, Kindle Fire, Fire TV, Remarkable 2 pad, FitBit tracker, digital hearing aids, vehicles with computer technology including communications, Skylight calendar, and so many other computerized gadgets that are designed to make life simpler. 

Even with all of this, we humans crave things that technology cannot give us - having a cup of coffee with a friend; giving a family member a hug; shaking hands with someone you just met; talking with a group of people all in the same room.  We crave relationship - with one another.  Certainly we love being outdoors in nature (who in Minnesota hasn’t learned how to love that?)  But we are wired to be with one another - to love one another. 

Being in ministry for over thirty years, I have to say we also desire a connection to the divine.  We want a relationship with God, with Jesus, with the Spirit.  Here is a good reminder for what we need today: grow inwardly with God's Holy Word as the primary guide, make certain we pay attention to reach upward toward God, and be mindful that we need to reach out to each other.

Jesus did that on the cross for us: no device will  ever replace that!