With daylight saving time just beginning, I was reminded again of the railroad. Anymore, we spring forward and fall back with only the slightest disruption. Any inconvenience it creates is usually more humorous than anything. We endure perhaps a few days of collective jet lag, but otherwise the time change is a normal part of life. But while the transition may be normal, it is not natural. It’s easy to forget that.
Daylight standard time, and its counterpart, time zones, replaced “solar time.” Before standard time, each town accounted for time locally by acknowledging the sun’s zenith—noon. This was local time. It wasn’t until railroads began traversing east and west, collapsing the two in on each other, that people began to need a standard time system.
As train travel and speed increased, the elapsed travel time didn’t match the local arrival time. A train that leaves Westchester traveling west at 40 miles per hour always arrives a few minutes early. Travelling east, always a few minutes late. It was simply unreliable. At every station, conductors were continually “springing forward” or “falling back” a few minutes to assimilate to local time. As the railroad expanded, so did the number of “local times,” until there were about 100. Keeping track of them all was a scheduling and mathematical nightmare. Something had to change.
So the railway companies invented time zones. The telegraph made this synchronicity possible. A technological solution to a technological problem. In the process, solar time became obsolete. The railroad had eclipsed the sun in synchronizing human activity.
Standard time and time zones solved a lot of problems, but they created new ones—hence daylight savings. Since people no longer coordinated their activities by the sun, they began to account for seasonal changes in a new way.
The telegraph and daylight savings both illuminate the ways that technology creates new problems and how, increasingly, we look for more technology to solve those problems.
But just as much, railroads illuminate how technology intervenes and requires new ways of synchronizing human interactions (otherwise called “relationships”). More and more, we use technology to coordinate these. However, as our technologies creates new problems, we respond with ever more technological solutions. Round and round it goes. Over time, we can lose perspective. Before we know it, technology is intervening everywhere, even interfering, coming between people. At some point, they’re hardly fit to be called relationships.
Whether we use a calendar, a clock, a geolocation app, or the new Highlight app, technology continues to coordinate more of our lives and our interactions. It standardizes when, where, and how we meet with others. Time, place, and process all fall within technology’s purview, and it begins to change them. And us.
For me, my whole schedule at work is dictated by my Microsoft Outlook calendar. This is easy because it’s integrated with everyone else’s calendar at the company. It coordinates us all.
From railroads and daylight saving time to Outlook and Highlight, we’ve created a lot of technology to organize and standardize and synchronize human relationships. We’ve built digital fences to be good neighbors. Daylight saving time is a normal part of modern life—every spring, every fall, it happens with relative ease and a few funny failures. These hiccups are normal, but they are not natural.
It’s worth taking the time to reflect on how the railroad has changed our relationship to the sun. But it’s also worthwhile to recognize how it has changed the structures of our environment—like time zones and daily work schedules. Most of all, it’s important to realize that the railroad not only made travel faster but also changed how we relate to one another. After all, at the end of the day, the sun still goes down like our world revolves around it.
The Second Eclectic
What we do shapes who we are. And technology shapes what we do. A media ecology blog.
The Community Filter
A Rabbi, an Amish man, and a Muslim walk into a bar. Well, okay, maybe it’s a kosher pie shoppe. But if they sat down and started talking about cell phones, they might find that they have a lot in common. Maybe not in how they use cell phones but in how their traditions shape that use. By contrast, my own evangelical tradition has left us to fend for ourselves. Let me explain.
Dave Stearns recently reviewed the book When Religion Meets New Media. In the book, the author, Heidi Campbell, cites a case study of the use of kosher cell phones. Apparently, the ultra-orthodox Jewish community is large enough to command the attention of mobile phone providers, who have in turn modified phones and service plans to accommodate Jewish values.
I dialogued a bit with Stearns about it. He pointed out that the ultra-Orthodox have a strong hierarchy in place. This hierarchy empowers a central authority to observe and evaluate new technology and its effects on their community. It also empowers that authority to speak with one voice and represent their people. Thus, the authority not only carries weight within the community but also advocates for, represents, and protects the community.
These dynamics reminded me of another “strong-tie” community—the Amish. They too have strong, clear—and in their case, explicit—values guiding the habits and practices of the Amish communities. Like the ultra-Orthodox Jews, Amish leaders evaluate technology’s impact and make decisions about using it. Guided by the Gelassenheit, Amish leaders have adopted many modern conveniences in limited ways. The Jewish community has likewise adopted cell phones with limitations.
More recently, I read about Muslim reactions to various technological developments. Salamworld is a Facebook equivalent premised on Islamic values. It’s “protected from harmful content” and a “virtual, model society, in the climate of peace.” It’s interested in protecting young people from “ideas that are not familiar to them” by using filters and moderators. Maybe that seems restrictive or censorial, but consider it in the context of parents and children. Parents are certainly interested in protecting their children from ideas that can hurt their development. In a context of love, protection makes sense. Perhaps Salamworld is trying to achieve a similar goal.
The Wall Street Journal published an article in February that explored the Internet’s effects in closed countries like Iran and China. In the U.S., we’ve tended to overlook “the Internet's role in authoritarian countries.” After all, it’s not only dissidents who use the technology; it’s also the governments in power. “Facebook and Twitter empower all groups,” not just the ones we’re rooting for. In other words, technology isn’t always changing what is happening, but instead is changing how it’s happening.
Returning to Stearns’ blog review, this pattern continues. Another example Campbell, the author, describes is how the Anglican Church has created a diocese in the virtual world of Second Life. Again, like the Jews and the Amish, Anglicans have clear hierarchy and authority structures in place which are guiding their practices and responses to technology. In the Anglican’s case, it’s not limited adoption but intentional engagement that has taken place.
The pattern is obvious: Communities with strong ties and clear authority structures can engage with technology in ways that reflect their values. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, the Amish, Muslims, China, and Anglicans are all hierarchical structures. Their structure helps them use technology in well-thought-out ways.
In our dialog, Stearns pointed out how much harder it is to explore these practices in flatter social structures like democracies. This includes my own tradition—Christian evangelicals. Evangelical beliefs and values are much more diverse. Authority structures are based on influence and not necessarily position. But there’s are some drawback to a democratic social structure like this.
In these “strong tie” communities, I see a lot of protection going on. Leaders are guiding the whole community, for the good of the community and its individuals. They’re doing so in a way that reflect their community’s values. Ultra-orthodox Jews can defer to experts who share their values. Muslims can log on to Salamworld confident that their values will be upheld there. In a way “strong-tie” communities function as filters.
Evangelicals, for the most part, are largely left to decide for themselves—about everything. They have fewer filters, so the flood of decisions is overwhelming. Sure, evangelicals can find experts, but they have to seek such an expert out and then determine whether he or she shares similar values—all before they can even begin to trust his or her judgment. The individual in a flat, democratic society is much less protected, and his responsibilities are much greater. The prospect is daunting.
While evangelicals may not have careful leaders to help us along, these “strong-tie” communities show us that we do have a choice. Their intentional engagement and limited adoption light a path the rest of us loners can follow. We are not at the mercy of technology. We can adopt and engage in limited and intentional ways. If we are only an authority unto ourselves, we at least might consider how best to wield that power. Those choices require self-discipline, sure, but deciding begins first with conscious evaluation. We can observe how we use technology, and we can identify some of its negative effects. We can decide how we might best limit our adoption to stave off its harmful effects.
We can observe. We can identify. We can decide.
In my next post, I’ll share a few of my own practices of limited adoption and intentional engagement.
Dave Stearns recently reviewed the book When Religion Meets New Media. In the book, the author, Heidi Campbell, cites a case study of the use of kosher cell phones. Apparently, the ultra-orthodox Jewish community is large enough to command the attention of mobile phone providers, who have in turn modified phones and service plans to accommodate Jewish values.
I dialogued a bit with Stearns about it. He pointed out that the ultra-Orthodox have a strong hierarchy in place. This hierarchy empowers a central authority to observe and evaluate new technology and its effects on their community. It also empowers that authority to speak with one voice and represent their people. Thus, the authority not only carries weight within the community but also advocates for, represents, and protects the community.
These dynamics reminded me of another “strong-tie” community—the Amish. They too have strong, clear—and in their case, explicit—values guiding the habits and practices of the Amish communities. Like the ultra-Orthodox Jews, Amish leaders evaluate technology’s impact and make decisions about using it. Guided by the Gelassenheit, Amish leaders have adopted many modern conveniences in limited ways. The Jewish community has likewise adopted cell phones with limitations.
More recently, I read about Muslim reactions to various technological developments. Salamworld is a Facebook equivalent premised on Islamic values. It’s “protected from harmful content” and a “virtual, model society, in the climate of peace.” It’s interested in protecting young people from “ideas that are not familiar to them” by using filters and moderators. Maybe that seems restrictive or censorial, but consider it in the context of parents and children. Parents are certainly interested in protecting their children from ideas that can hurt their development. In a context of love, protection makes sense. Perhaps Salamworld is trying to achieve a similar goal.
The Wall Street Journal published an article in February that explored the Internet’s effects in closed countries like Iran and China. In the U.S., we’ve tended to overlook “the Internet's role in authoritarian countries.” After all, it’s not only dissidents who use the technology; it’s also the governments in power. “Facebook and Twitter empower all groups,” not just the ones we’re rooting for. In other words, technology isn’t always changing what is happening, but instead is changing how it’s happening.
Returning to Stearns’ blog review, this pattern continues. Another example Campbell, the author, describes is how the Anglican Church has created a diocese in the virtual world of Second Life. Again, like the Jews and the Amish, Anglicans have clear hierarchy and authority structures in place which are guiding their practices and responses to technology. In the Anglican’s case, it’s not limited adoption but intentional engagement that has taken place.
The pattern is obvious: Communities with strong ties and clear authority structures can engage with technology in ways that reflect their values. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, the Amish, Muslims, China, and Anglicans are all hierarchical structures. Their structure helps them use technology in well-thought-out ways.
In our dialog, Stearns pointed out how much harder it is to explore these practices in flatter social structures like democracies. This includes my own tradition—Christian evangelicals. Evangelical beliefs and values are much more diverse. Authority structures are based on influence and not necessarily position. But there’s are some drawback to a democratic social structure like this.
In these “strong tie” communities, I see a lot of protection going on. Leaders are guiding the whole community, for the good of the community and its individuals. They’re doing so in a way that reflect their community’s values. Ultra-orthodox Jews can defer to experts who share their values. Muslims can log on to Salamworld confident that their values will be upheld there. In a way “strong-tie” communities function as filters.
Evangelicals, for the most part, are largely left to decide for themselves—about everything. They have fewer filters, so the flood of decisions is overwhelming. Sure, evangelicals can find experts, but they have to seek such an expert out and then determine whether he or she shares similar values—all before they can even begin to trust his or her judgment. The individual in a flat, democratic society is much less protected, and his responsibilities are much greater. The prospect is daunting.
While evangelicals may not have careful leaders to help us along, these “strong-tie” communities show us that we do have a choice. Their intentional engagement and limited adoption light a path the rest of us loners can follow. We are not at the mercy of technology. We can adopt and engage in limited and intentional ways. If we are only an authority unto ourselves, we at least might consider how best to wield that power. Those choices require self-discipline, sure, but deciding begins first with conscious evaluation. We can observe how we use technology, and we can identify some of its negative effects. We can decide how we might best limit our adoption to stave off its harmful effects.
We can observe. We can identify. We can decide.
In my next post, I’ll share a few of my own practices of limited adoption and intentional engagement.
"Too Great For Words," part 3
(part 1, part 2) Note: This concludes the story of how Job's three friends tried to communicate their empathy using modern communication tools like cell phones, letters, text messages, and, here, finally, Skype.
Elihu isn’t just across the country. He is, in fact, across the globe. He’s living abroad but has high-speed Internet access. Because of this, he’s become very familiar with Skype and its great benefits for staying connected with people back home. So when he hears about what’s befallen his deeply religious friend, his first instinct is to Skype Job.
When Job’s wife answers, Elihu can see her tired eyes and haggard face. He can see the grief that has aged her so suddenly. The laugh lines in her face have deepened like crevices. The lifetime of grief she has experienced in just a few short days. She speaks with Elihu for a few moments, then she says, “Let me get Job.”
The screen image is jarring, but Elihu has grown accustomed to it. As she picks up the laptop and carries it to her husband, her head remains relatively centered in the monitor with the background suddenly shifting and jolting. He watches her face, looking away from the camera. He watches her eyes, knows the moment they lock on Job, sees the clues that tell him she is approaching Job. Then a blur and Job is there. He looks briefly at Elihu, a faint acknowledgement. The he looks off screen, talking briefly to his wife. The sun is bright in the room behind him, leaving Job’s face in slight shade. Elihu tips his monitor forward a bit for a better picture.
Job is focused on the monitor now, but his eyes are downcast slightly. His eyelids hang low, almost imperceptible, yet still perceived. Elihu is used to this unreality too. He know Job is looking at his image onscreen, instead of at the dead eye of the camera lens. Thus Elihu and Job don’t quite make eye contact. Elihu remembers this, he is practiced, and makes sure to look straight at the lens when he wants to communicate with emphasis and meaning—so that as Job watches the screen, he feels that Elihu is making eye contact. Of course, in doing this, Elihu can’t watch Job’s face at the same time.
Job, on the other hand, is less experienced with Skype, so he rarely looks directly into the camera, and only incidentally. So Elihu perceives the faintest disconnect. They can’t ever make eye contact, not really. They sit in silence for some time, watching each other across the globe. There is silence, and almost presence. But there is an expectation to be facing each other—in a manner of speaking.
Elihu is aware that he has no sense of what’s going on behind Job’s computer screen. Every once in a while Job looks up. Elihu waits. The voice of Job’s wife crackles in and out. Occasionally he catches sight of her. He realizes the door is behind the monitor, where Job’s wife is walking in, back out. One time he sees just her hands as she places a cup of tea in front of Job. She is a passionate, loving wife. He sets the cup down beside the computer, just off camera. Elihu watches Job’s hand drop in a tea bag, raising and lowering the string like an oil derrick, stirring the hot water with a spoon. But Elihu can’t see the tea cup. He can’t focus on what Job is focused on. They can’t experience it together.
Elihu realizes, he’s never watched grief like this before. He’s never watched it. In all the time he’s been abroad until now, there hasn’t been too much sorrow among those close to him. He hasn’t sought to connect with them at this level, at this depth. And it occurs to him, then, that there is a human reality that he hasn’t descended into in a long time. There, inside his computer, he feels very far away from home. He realizes that he hasn’t connected with them at this present, spatial level—not in many months. That level where something else, something specific flares up, something unnamable. It is an evasive loneliness. If he could look directly at it, he knows he could not see it. And now that the detachment has come near, he knows he has been lonely longer than he realized. It unravels backward through the past months and he understands them better. But he doesn’t not feel better for realizing it.
There is a numbness as he watches Job stir an unseen cup. He realizes it’s a numbness to Job’s surroundings. An atmosphere—that is the nearest word. Elihu cannot hear the rustle of Job’s wife coming up the stairs or feel the chair across from Job’s couch. He cannot feel the warm sun coming into the room, or hear the sounds of the garbage truck on the street or the kids shouting down the block. He did not walk up the driveway into Job’s house and feel the meaning of the empty house. He is watching, but there is a numbness, dead nerve endings that no amount of stimulation can reanimate. Elihu feels cut off.
Conclusion
So even Skype, with its real-time sights and sounds, destroys context and restricts communication. It expects that Job will go on facing Elihu, even if nothing is said. There is still an obligation upon Job if he is to receive any comfort from Elihu. Otherwise, any turn of the head for the one becomes an activity to watch for the other—is there something happening in the room? some distraction, that is drawing his attention? The friend becomes the viewer, looking for clues to what’s happening. Any shared experience is only sight and sound but not taste or touch or smell. It is not communion.
Just as, for Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, presence was transformed into sound and word, so for Elihu presence is transubstantiated into sound and image. For Eliphaz on the phone, silence becomes suspicion of a lost call. For Bildad writing and Zophar texting, sentences and paragraphs and text messages obliterate silence. It cannot exist for them. For Elihu on Skype, silence can exist only as image. Never as presence.
In all these ways, technology dissects presence. And like most dissected things, presence dies in the process. For presence must live in a way that no communications technology can transport or transcend. Communication technologies can only kill it in order to process it—like meat.
Finally, we must recognize the inversion that takes place with technologies like these. They turn presence into words. But Jesus, when he came, did the opposite. He turned word into presence. The Word became God with us. God’s law was superseded by God’s presence; Christ fulfilled the purpose of the Law. Jesus did not simply communicate, he communed. Technology does the opposite—communion becomes communication. This reversal is not insignificant. It is an antithesis to Christ.
For believers, who are Christ’s body, technology’s posture must be a warning sign. The church cannot embody the presence of Christ through technology. Where it uses technology to connect with people, it has already failed in its calling. “Go.” This was the failure of Job’s friends. They chose to stay, when they needed to go. They extended their reach through technology and failed to touch Job with their presence.
Elihu isn’t just across the country. He is, in fact, across the globe. He’s living abroad but has high-speed Internet access. Because of this, he’s become very familiar with Skype and its great benefits for staying connected with people back home. So when he hears about what’s befallen his deeply religious friend, his first instinct is to Skype Job.
When Job’s wife answers, Elihu can see her tired eyes and haggard face. He can see the grief that has aged her so suddenly. The laugh lines in her face have deepened like crevices. The lifetime of grief she has experienced in just a few short days. She speaks with Elihu for a few moments, then she says, “Let me get Job.”
The screen image is jarring, but Elihu has grown accustomed to it. As she picks up the laptop and carries it to her husband, her head remains relatively centered in the monitor with the background suddenly shifting and jolting. He watches her face, looking away from the camera. He watches her eyes, knows the moment they lock on Job, sees the clues that tell him she is approaching Job. Then a blur and Job is there. He looks briefly at Elihu, a faint acknowledgement. The he looks off screen, talking briefly to his wife. The sun is bright in the room behind him, leaving Job’s face in slight shade. Elihu tips his monitor forward a bit for a better picture.
Job is focused on the monitor now, but his eyes are downcast slightly. His eyelids hang low, almost imperceptible, yet still perceived. Elihu is used to this unreality too. He know Job is looking at his image onscreen, instead of at the dead eye of the camera lens. Thus Elihu and Job don’t quite make eye contact. Elihu remembers this, he is practiced, and makes sure to look straight at the lens when he wants to communicate with emphasis and meaning—so that as Job watches the screen, he feels that Elihu is making eye contact. Of course, in doing this, Elihu can’t watch Job’s face at the same time.
Job, on the other hand, is less experienced with Skype, so he rarely looks directly into the camera, and only incidentally. So Elihu perceives the faintest disconnect. They can’t ever make eye contact, not really. They sit in silence for some time, watching each other across the globe. There is silence, and almost presence. But there is an expectation to be facing each other—in a manner of speaking.
Elihu is aware that he has no sense of what’s going on behind Job’s computer screen. Every once in a while Job looks up. Elihu waits. The voice of Job’s wife crackles in and out. Occasionally he catches sight of her. He realizes the door is behind the monitor, where Job’s wife is walking in, back out. One time he sees just her hands as she places a cup of tea in front of Job. She is a passionate, loving wife. He sets the cup down beside the computer, just off camera. Elihu watches Job’s hand drop in a tea bag, raising and lowering the string like an oil derrick, stirring the hot water with a spoon. But Elihu can’t see the tea cup. He can’t focus on what Job is focused on. They can’t experience it together.
Elihu realizes, he’s never watched grief like this before. He’s never watched it. In all the time he’s been abroad until now, there hasn’t been too much sorrow among those close to him. He hasn’t sought to connect with them at this level, at this depth. And it occurs to him, then, that there is a human reality that he hasn’t descended into in a long time. There, inside his computer, he feels very far away from home. He realizes that he hasn’t connected with them at this present, spatial level—not in many months. That level where something else, something specific flares up, something unnamable. It is an evasive loneliness. If he could look directly at it, he knows he could not see it. And now that the detachment has come near, he knows he has been lonely longer than he realized. It unravels backward through the past months and he understands them better. But he doesn’t not feel better for realizing it.
There is a numbness as he watches Job stir an unseen cup. He realizes it’s a numbness to Job’s surroundings. An atmosphere—that is the nearest word. Elihu cannot hear the rustle of Job’s wife coming up the stairs or feel the chair across from Job’s couch. He cannot feel the warm sun coming into the room, or hear the sounds of the garbage truck on the street or the kids shouting down the block. He did not walk up the driveway into Job’s house and feel the meaning of the empty house. He is watching, but there is a numbness, dead nerve endings that no amount of stimulation can reanimate. Elihu feels cut off.
Conclusion
So even Skype, with its real-time sights and sounds, destroys context and restricts communication. It expects that Job will go on facing Elihu, even if nothing is said. There is still an obligation upon Job if he is to receive any comfort from Elihu. Otherwise, any turn of the head for the one becomes an activity to watch for the other—is there something happening in the room? some distraction, that is drawing his attention? The friend becomes the viewer, looking for clues to what’s happening. Any shared experience is only sight and sound but not taste or touch or smell. It is not communion.
Just as, for Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, presence was transformed into sound and word, so for Elihu presence is transubstantiated into sound and image. For Eliphaz on the phone, silence becomes suspicion of a lost call. For Bildad writing and Zophar texting, sentences and paragraphs and text messages obliterate silence. It cannot exist for them. For Elihu on Skype, silence can exist only as image. Never as presence.
In all these ways, technology dissects presence. And like most dissected things, presence dies in the process. For presence must live in a way that no communications technology can transport or transcend. Communication technologies can only kill it in order to process it—like meat.
Finally, we must recognize the inversion that takes place with technologies like these. They turn presence into words. But Jesus, when he came, did the opposite. He turned word into presence. The Word became God with us. God’s law was superseded by God’s presence; Christ fulfilled the purpose of the Law. Jesus did not simply communicate, he communed. Technology does the opposite—communion becomes communication. This reversal is not insignificant. It is an antithesis to Christ.
For believers, who are Christ’s body, technology’s posture must be a warning sign. The church cannot embody the presence of Christ through technology. Where it uses technology to connect with people, it has already failed in its calling. “Go.” This was the failure of Job’s friends. They chose to stay, when they needed to go. They extended their reach through technology and failed to touch Job with their presence.
"Too Great For Words," part 2
(part 1)
The same evening that Bildad receives the news of Job’s cursed misfortune, he sits down in his study. He shuts the door and pulls out some stationary embossed with his initials. A handwritten letter will communicate his affection and empathy for Job. He finds a nice pen and taps it against his lips. He leans back in his chair, looks out the window, and tries to imagine his friend’s face, the lines in it. Bildad tries to imagine the kind of sorrow he himself might experience at such a tragic series of events. He sits staring out the window for some time, lost in thought, even getting choked up thinking of Job and his effusive wife. He wipes his eyes.
Finally full of anger and heartache and sadness, he begins to write. He scraps the first draft and starts again. Not that Job will know that this is the second draft. Not that Job will know how Bildad has been weeping and meditating, even praying, for the past half hour. No, he sets his pen to the stationary. That is the beginning of Bildad’s affection as far as Job knows. Unless Bildad describes his own tears, his eyes will be dry to Job.
Between sentences Bildad pauses to collect his thoughts, now darting out in many directions. Not that Job will see the time that elapses between the period and the capital letter. Not that Job’s wife, as she reads the letter aloud to her husband, will pause and let silence well up between the paragraphs. No, the words and sentences will barrel on until the end with only letter-spaces obliterating the minutes that pass among them.
Bildad has written a lot of letters, feels he’s pretty adroit in executing them anymore. This one has a bit of an arc, as it should, from beginning to end. He feels his words are encouraging enough, but also tinged with a sense of grief. They are also eloquent. After all, compassion in bound up in beautiful language. Only beauty in words can suggest gravity in meaning.
But there’s a hesitation. Bildad wonders if any words can really speak into Job’s crisis. He wonders if Job can even receive such words as Bildad intends them. He has no chance inflect his words with a tone of voice—a different sort of meaning. He only has vague words to draw out and a lumbering language to shape. He wishes he could speak these words to Job face-to-face, and gauge his reaction so that he might modify them as he goes—to temper or exaggerate, to pause or rush on. But he cannot be present. He cannot even be silent. The letter prods him on. He must write and use words. Silence only looks like indifference. He must respond, so he signs the letter, and sends it first thing the following morning.
***
Zophar, for his part, sees the need to respond quickly to Job’s turn of fate. He too grieves the day he receives the news. His thoughts, throughout his busy day, continually return to his friend Job. Zophar’s compassion is immediate, and he feels the need to communicate that immediacy. Time is of the essence. Job will appreciate immediate contact, Zophar thinks to himself. It will communicate value and priority.
Zophar picks up his phone and taps out a message with his thumbs. “Job. Just heard. Thinking about you. Am so sad. Anything I can do?” Like Bildad did, Zophar pauses between each phrase. Zophar rereads it and edits a little bit. He’s not totally satisfied with it, but he wants Job to know immediately that he is thinking of him. He hits ‘Send.’
No response.
Zophar wonders then. Perhaps Job’s cell phone was in the fire too. Or, if not, maybe it’s not on. Or if it is, maybe it’s on silent. Or maybe Job did get the text but doesn’t want to respond. What could Job say, after all? Can any 160 characters encapsulate Job’s grief? Zophar wonders to himself. What would I say if I were him? Nothing, probably. I’d feel no need to respond. I’d receive without obligation.
So Zophar continues periodically to text Job with some encouragement or just to say he’s thinking about Job, praying for Job. He hears nothing back. That small bit of uncertainty makes Zophar anxious, but he shakes his head. What to do now? Call up Job and make sure he’s getting text messages? If he hasn’t gotten any of them, then the first thing Job would be receiving from Zophar isn’t compassion but a pragmatic meta-conversation about communication. It’s all mangled. Zophar feels handicapped, not empowered.
For Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, their technologies are blatantly limited and frustrating. Each friend wants to express to Job an empathy that only presence and silence can do effectively, precisely, and inefficiently. Instead each is forced into using words, pressing against the limits of language—its eloquence and its evocative power—to try and transmit the unutterable meaning of presence. Each was trying to put presence into words. Something presence was never meant to become.
But there is still another friend yet to come. Elihu will exceed all three in his technological acumen. He will surpass his predecessors with the most personal communications technology yet. Skype.
The same evening that Bildad receives the news of Job’s cursed misfortune, he sits down in his study. He shuts the door and pulls out some stationary embossed with his initials. A handwritten letter will communicate his affection and empathy for Job. He finds a nice pen and taps it against his lips. He leans back in his chair, looks out the window, and tries to imagine his friend’s face, the lines in it. Bildad tries to imagine the kind of sorrow he himself might experience at such a tragic series of events. He sits staring out the window for some time, lost in thought, even getting choked up thinking of Job and his effusive wife. He wipes his eyes.
Finally full of anger and heartache and sadness, he begins to write. He scraps the first draft and starts again. Not that Job will know that this is the second draft. Not that Job will know how Bildad has been weeping and meditating, even praying, for the past half hour. No, he sets his pen to the stationary. That is the beginning of Bildad’s affection as far as Job knows. Unless Bildad describes his own tears, his eyes will be dry to Job.
Between sentences Bildad pauses to collect his thoughts, now darting out in many directions. Not that Job will see the time that elapses between the period and the capital letter. Not that Job’s wife, as she reads the letter aloud to her husband, will pause and let silence well up between the paragraphs. No, the words and sentences will barrel on until the end with only letter-spaces obliterating the minutes that pass among them.
Bildad has written a lot of letters, feels he’s pretty adroit in executing them anymore. This one has a bit of an arc, as it should, from beginning to end. He feels his words are encouraging enough, but also tinged with a sense of grief. They are also eloquent. After all, compassion in bound up in beautiful language. Only beauty in words can suggest gravity in meaning.
But there’s a hesitation. Bildad wonders if any words can really speak into Job’s crisis. He wonders if Job can even receive such words as Bildad intends them. He has no chance inflect his words with a tone of voice—a different sort of meaning. He only has vague words to draw out and a lumbering language to shape. He wishes he could speak these words to Job face-to-face, and gauge his reaction so that he might modify them as he goes—to temper or exaggerate, to pause or rush on. But he cannot be present. He cannot even be silent. The letter prods him on. He must write and use words. Silence only looks like indifference. He must respond, so he signs the letter, and sends it first thing the following morning.
***
Zophar, for his part, sees the need to respond quickly to Job’s turn of fate. He too grieves the day he receives the news. His thoughts, throughout his busy day, continually return to his friend Job. Zophar’s compassion is immediate, and he feels the need to communicate that immediacy. Time is of the essence. Job will appreciate immediate contact, Zophar thinks to himself. It will communicate value and priority.
Zophar picks up his phone and taps out a message with his thumbs. “Job. Just heard. Thinking about you. Am so sad. Anything I can do?” Like Bildad did, Zophar pauses between each phrase. Zophar rereads it and edits a little bit. He’s not totally satisfied with it, but he wants Job to know immediately that he is thinking of him. He hits ‘Send.’
No response.
Zophar wonders then. Perhaps Job’s cell phone was in the fire too. Or, if not, maybe it’s not on. Or if it is, maybe it’s on silent. Or maybe Job did get the text but doesn’t want to respond. What could Job say, after all? Can any 160 characters encapsulate Job’s grief? Zophar wonders to himself. What would I say if I were him? Nothing, probably. I’d feel no need to respond. I’d receive without obligation.
So Zophar continues periodically to text Job with some encouragement or just to say he’s thinking about Job, praying for Job. He hears nothing back. That small bit of uncertainty makes Zophar anxious, but he shakes his head. What to do now? Call up Job and make sure he’s getting text messages? If he hasn’t gotten any of them, then the first thing Job would be receiving from Zophar isn’t compassion but a pragmatic meta-conversation about communication. It’s all mangled. Zophar feels handicapped, not empowered.
For Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, their technologies are blatantly limited and frustrating. Each friend wants to express to Job an empathy that only presence and silence can do effectively, precisely, and inefficiently. Instead each is forced into using words, pressing against the limits of language—its eloquence and its evocative power—to try and transmit the unutterable meaning of presence. Each was trying to put presence into words. Something presence was never meant to become.
But there is still another friend yet to come. Elihu will exceed all three in his technological acumen. He will surpass his predecessors with the most personal communications technology yet. Skype.
"Too Great For Words": Silence in Technology, part 1
Most people bristle at the notion that technology is biased. Biases are like prejudices, which are bad, but we like our technology, so we don’t want to believe that it might be similarly warped. Isn’t technology neutral? Isn’t the important thing what you do with it?
Now technology is a bit evasive, always slipping behind mirrors by giving us what we asked for—relentlessly. It’s reflexive that way and forces us to admit that, yes, we did program it to do just that.
To get a good bead on technology, you’ve got to be very quiet. Technology is skittish, like a wild animal. If you’re going to hunt it, or even just track it, you have to be stealthy. And the stealthiest hunters are always silent. They are present but unheard. This is the tack I recommend for studying technology—presence and silence.
Perhaps some would disagree, but silence and presence has great value. These two are almost inextricably tied together. Now, silence has many meanings—often negative—but let us narrow that meaning to a single, positive: empathy. Consider Job, the legendary sufferer. Now Job’s friends are known for their long-winded advice. But what most forget is that when they first came to comfort him, they sat with him, saying nothing, for seven days. Why? Because “they saw that his suffering was too great for words.” For a week, they were present and silent. They were with Job in his grief.
I love this moment in the story. While much of the book of Job is often baffling, this moment in Job is pregnant with wisdom. Before 30-some chapters of chatter begins, this moment of silence. It reminds me of something I learned about the Amish.
In Amish communities, silence isn’t simply way to express resentment or contentment. Words, they believe, cannot explain some mysteries in life, but silence creates space for understanding realities that cannot be verbalized. Job’s friends understood this too.
Silence isn’t always a method for shutting someone out. Sometimes silence is a way of letting someone in. Silence can communicate openness and acceptance—and empathy—allowing for deeper understanding to well up. The Amish understand this. Job’s friends did too. So how can we understand it better?
Let’s imagine a modern-day Job. Satan struck him by God’s permission. Job’s small business burned to the ground. Insurance had a loophole and will pay him no damages. His children were killed in the blaze. His retirement accounts were defrauded by identity thieves. Job has nothing.
When Job’s friends hear of this they are filled with compassion for Job. Each is genuinely distraught at the news. But each one lives far away, and their lives are busy like most of ours are. It’s costly to fly across the country to see Job. What’s more, they can’t get much time off from work to care for a non-relative. The good news is that nowadays they can communicate their compassion even across these great distances.
So Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar each sit down the very evening they get the news. They do not delay. Their compassion moves them to respond immediately. They are true and committed friends. They reach out to Job. They set aside their agendas to connect with him.
Eliphaz is the first to reach Job. Eliphaz is an active, extroverted guy, so he decides a phone call is the clearest way to convey his compassion to Job. He dials the number. Job’s wife picks up.
“How is he?” Eliphaz asks. He needs a visual. He tries to imagine where Job might be sitting in their home. What might be going on around him. Are there other mourners there? Is there palpable grief hanging in the air? Anger? Silence? Eliphaz is intent on molding his soul to Job’s situation as much as possible, to disturb him as little as possible. Eliphaz simply wants Job to know that he cares.
Job’s wife is herself distraught, hardly able to put words together. Finally Eliphaz interrupts her, “Can I talk to him?” She mumbles, Eliphaz hears shuffling, the passing of the phone, and then heavy breathing. Job.
“Job.” Eliphaz says his name. “Job, it’s me, Eliphaz. I just got the news. Job, I’m so sorry.”
Job voice is low, nearly inaudible. Outside, Eliphaz’s wife is talking to the neighbor and her voice carries through the open window, so Eliphaz doesn’t catch all Job’s words. “What was that? I—Job, I couldn’t hear all that, can you speak up?” He scrambles to shut the window.
Job really has nothing to say. And Eliphaz too falls silent. What can be said? Somehow, there is an expectation of sound when using the phone. Silence is senseless on the phone. The illusion of presence can only be communicated with sound. But how can Eliphaz impose such an expectation on his dear friend—whose suffering is too deep for words?
When the heavy breathing disappears, Eliphaz pauses, tensing up for a moment. “Job? Are you still there?” A grunt. “Oh, okay, sorry, I thought the call might’ve gotten dropped.”
Eliphaz’s arm soon wearies of holding the phone to his ear, and this silence seems useless. Eliphaz is distracted again, hearing the back door open and shut, his wife coming in. Then she’s at the door, looking at him questioningly. He waves her off, even though neither he nor Job is saying anything. Finally, Eliphaz isn’t sure what else he can say. The silence feels useless.
“Job, um, listen I’m going to go. Again, I’m so sorry. Hannah and I, we’re so sorry. Job, call if you need anything.” More mumbling, then the line is dead. Eliphaz breathes. Still frustrated, feeling powerless. “What else could I do?” He wonders.
(In Part Two: Bildad sends a handwritten letter, and Zophar texts Job.)
Why I returned my Kindle . . .
The second emotion I felt when I unwrapped my Amazon Kindle was fear. It was Christmas morning. Up to that point in the morning and in my life, I had maintained a cool detachment from the allure of ebooks. But when the wrapping paper was stripped off to reveal the Kindle image on the box, my first emotion surfaced.
I flashed back to another Christmas morning when I was about 8. I had the same feeling then too. My sister had just opened a gift, and we were all admiring it. But I was anxious, distracted, waiting for that subtle shift of attention, the conversation to slow, the eye contact from my parents, the cue that I could proceed to open my next gift. It was sitting here, big, heavy, on my lap. I couldn’t imagine what it might be.
My sister was still reveling in her gift. The attention hadn’t turned, but my hand simply found a corner and began pulling. The first strip was gone, the box underneath showing. I hesitated for a moment realizing that I’d started in too soon. But by then it was too late. The box was colorful. I was tearing at the paper with abandon. The Nintendo logo, Mario’s red cap and blue overalls. I was screaming.
It was that same elation, upon seeing the Kindle now revealing its midriff from behind the Christmas wrappings. That same feeling surfaced now, twenty years later. My screaming fortunately had matured somewhat into something akin to laughter. Perhaps it was laughter at myself, embarrassed at the 8-year-old giddiness that was still inside me. Can I still be a little boy inside?
Apparently so. Apparently shiny new toys, new high-tech gadgets still excite me. I still grin with embarrassment at it.
But like I said, the second emotion I experienced was fear. Why? Because I realized how susceptible I am to the sheen of new technology. It made my eyes shine. It brought joy and wonder and anticipation. It opened up new worlds and new possibilities. I had believed I was detached from this allure. I thought I had a clear perspective, understood technology’s Faustian bargain. I had even told myself I wasn’t interested in having a Kindle. But that first emotion, the giddiness of 8-year-old me, chastised me. I was afraid because I knew I wasn’t so self-controlled, so rational, as I had prided myself I was.
For all the rational arguments and careful analysis I might offer from this blog, that moment, with the Kindle undressing before me, showed me that I cared nothing for these arguments. I was excited. And I wanted to continue being excited. Arguments be damned.
I looked at it in my hands, the box. I hadn’t taken the actual device out yet. Fear had checked that impulse. But I still sat with wonder, gazing at it. Imagining myself using it. Imagining what books I might buy. Imagining what it would be like to browse the Kindle store. Setting up an account. Being seen by others while I coolly tapped, next page. A new persona was being created right then and there. I was a new man.
I didn’t take the device out of the box that day. I didn’t take it out the next day either. I thought about it for a while. I wasn’t ready to commit. I knew the excitement would continue—me smiling—with each layer being peeled off. The box. The specially molded packaging, bedding the Kindle snugly. The plastic wrap. I imagined turning it on. Getting lost in navigating the new features. Learning the new environment. It was an experience. Tactile. I wanted it.
But I didn’t open the box the week after Christmas. I had decided to return to work, where a number of my colleagues own Kindles, and ask them about theirs. I asked a friend who had one. “How do you use yours?” What I meant was when and where did she read them? What sorts of books did she read on them?
She told me that she read mostly fiction books on hers. She wanted to highlight some of her nonfiction reading, and besides, most of her nonfiction was for grad school. The Kindle is just bad at highlighting, she told me. Easier with a touchscreen, but still. She said, too, that she really used it mostly when traveling, on a plane or on vacation, but not at the beach or near the pool. And not really on the bus or on the train during her commute. Some of us still consider 150 dollars enough money to think twice before flashing it around.
At work the following week, I asked my colleagues and they said similar things. Fiction is good. It’s good for traveling, but they’d prefer reading a book at home. Not everyone said that, but it was common.
So I found the receipt for my Kindle and the bag that it came in and I put it on the counter by the door. I was planning to return it. It sat there on the counter for another week and a half. I was going through the stages of grief.
I was mourning the loss of the future I’d imagined. I was letting go of the hopes and dreams and identity I had wrapped up in that status symbol. I was grieving for the excitement I’d felt at first.
But, since returning it, I haven’t really looked back. I made the right decision. Using it just for fiction books seemed foolish to me when I could get most of them from the library for free. I do read plenty of nonfiction too and a highlighter is always close by, with its yellow cheeriness. I always hesitate to make the first highlight in a book, but after that I do so with abandon. And I like the record it leaves, like tracks behind me in the sand. I was here.
And another thing. I still love having a bookshelf. I browse it once in a while. Friends come over and do the same. They pull one off and ask me about it, or judge me for having it. And I love it all. And that’s one of the hidden realities about eReaders. They aren’t just books. They’re bookshelves. They’re bookshelves that I’d have to upgrade every couple years. I’d have to upgrade just to keep my bookshelf full of my books. I don’t like having obsolete bookshelves.
And those are choices I don’t want to be forced to make. I mean, I’m a nostalgic guy. Think about it: I had trouble parting with a Kindle I’d never even used. How much worse would I feel at losing books I owned because of a technical glitch? Or for being strong armed into purchasing a new Kindle just to keep the bookshelf I’d created? Nostalgia and resentment have a lot in common.
No, I wasn’t going to navigate those emotional tides. I’d found out that there was still an 8-year-old boy inside of me. And maybe I do still need to grow up and learn to be more detached, more adult-like. Or maybe I need to stoke that fire.
I flashed back to another Christmas morning when I was about 8. I had the same feeling then too. My sister had just opened a gift, and we were all admiring it. But I was anxious, distracted, waiting for that subtle shift of attention, the conversation to slow, the eye contact from my parents, the cue that I could proceed to open my next gift. It was sitting here, big, heavy, on my lap. I couldn’t imagine what it might be.
My sister was still reveling in her gift. The attention hadn’t turned, but my hand simply found a corner and began pulling. The first strip was gone, the box underneath showing. I hesitated for a moment realizing that I’d started in too soon. But by then it was too late. The box was colorful. I was tearing at the paper with abandon. The Nintendo logo, Mario’s red cap and blue overalls. I was screaming.
It was that same elation, upon seeing the Kindle now revealing its midriff from behind the Christmas wrappings. That same feeling surfaced now, twenty years later. My screaming fortunately had matured somewhat into something akin to laughter. Perhaps it was laughter at myself, embarrassed at the 8-year-old giddiness that was still inside me. Can I still be a little boy inside?
Apparently so. Apparently shiny new toys, new high-tech gadgets still excite me. I still grin with embarrassment at it.
But like I said, the second emotion I experienced was fear. Why? Because I realized how susceptible I am to the sheen of new technology. It made my eyes shine. It brought joy and wonder and anticipation. It opened up new worlds and new possibilities. I had believed I was detached from this allure. I thought I had a clear perspective, understood technology’s Faustian bargain. I had even told myself I wasn’t interested in having a Kindle. But that first emotion, the giddiness of 8-year-old me, chastised me. I was afraid because I knew I wasn’t so self-controlled, so rational, as I had prided myself I was.
For all the rational arguments and careful analysis I might offer from this blog, that moment, with the Kindle undressing before me, showed me that I cared nothing for these arguments. I was excited. And I wanted to continue being excited. Arguments be damned.
I looked at it in my hands, the box. I hadn’t taken the actual device out yet. Fear had checked that impulse. But I still sat with wonder, gazing at it. Imagining myself using it. Imagining what books I might buy. Imagining what it would be like to browse the Kindle store. Setting up an account. Being seen by others while I coolly tapped, next page. A new persona was being created right then and there. I was a new man.
I didn’t take the device out of the box that day. I didn’t take it out the next day either. I thought about it for a while. I wasn’t ready to commit. I knew the excitement would continue—me smiling—with each layer being peeled off. The box. The specially molded packaging, bedding the Kindle snugly. The plastic wrap. I imagined turning it on. Getting lost in navigating the new features. Learning the new environment. It was an experience. Tactile. I wanted it.
But I didn’t open the box the week after Christmas. I had decided to return to work, where a number of my colleagues own Kindles, and ask them about theirs. I asked a friend who had one. “How do you use yours?” What I meant was when and where did she read them? What sorts of books did she read on them?
She told me that she read mostly fiction books on hers. She wanted to highlight some of her nonfiction reading, and besides, most of her nonfiction was for grad school. The Kindle is just bad at highlighting, she told me. Easier with a touchscreen, but still. She said, too, that she really used it mostly when traveling, on a plane or on vacation, but not at the beach or near the pool. And not really on the bus or on the train during her commute. Some of us still consider 150 dollars enough money to think twice before flashing it around.
At work the following week, I asked my colleagues and they said similar things. Fiction is good. It’s good for traveling, but they’d prefer reading a book at home. Not everyone said that, but it was common.
So I found the receipt for my Kindle and the bag that it came in and I put it on the counter by the door. I was planning to return it. It sat there on the counter for another week and a half. I was going through the stages of grief.
I was mourning the loss of the future I’d imagined. I was letting go of the hopes and dreams and identity I had wrapped up in that status symbol. I was grieving for the excitement I’d felt at first.
But, since returning it, I haven’t really looked back. I made the right decision. Using it just for fiction books seemed foolish to me when I could get most of them from the library for free. I do read plenty of nonfiction too and a highlighter is always close by, with its yellow cheeriness. I always hesitate to make the first highlight in a book, but after that I do so with abandon. And I like the record it leaves, like tracks behind me in the sand. I was here.
And another thing. I still love having a bookshelf. I browse it once in a while. Friends come over and do the same. They pull one off and ask me about it, or judge me for having it. And I love it all. And that’s one of the hidden realities about eReaders. They aren’t just books. They’re bookshelves. They’re bookshelves that I’d have to upgrade every couple years. I’d have to upgrade just to keep my bookshelf full of my books. I don’t like having obsolete bookshelves.
And those are choices I don’t want to be forced to make. I mean, I’m a nostalgic guy. Think about it: I had trouble parting with a Kindle I’d never even used. How much worse would I feel at losing books I owned because of a technical glitch? Or for being strong armed into purchasing a new Kindle just to keep the bookshelf I’d created? Nostalgia and resentment have a lot in common.
No, I wasn’t going to navigate those emotional tides. I’d found out that there was still an 8-year-old boy inside of me. And maybe I do still need to grow up and learn to be more detached, more adult-like. Or maybe I need to stoke that fire.
Expertise and Wisdom
"The expert is an ignoramus." McLuhan and Postman both derided the expert. They characterized the expert as one who strips context away from his own small field of expertise. The expert looks at the figure and ignores the background. This makes sense, given McLuhan’s and Postman’s own areas of expertise and their constant call for attention to the environments that technology is creating. Environment is context.
But McLuhan and Postman weren’t alone. None other than G K Chesterton also derided the expert. In his book, Orthodoxy, he writes, “Our civilization has decided, and very justly decided, that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men. It wishes for light upon that awful matter, it asks men who know no more law than I know, but who can feel the things that I felt in the jury box. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.”
Postman argues that one cannot be an expert about “childrearing, lovemaking, and friend-making.” Sorry Dr Phil.
The expert is created for one purpose, Postman argues, and that is to solve a particular problem. To say nothing about how the problem is understood or whether worthwhile questions are being asked. But the expert brings expertise—a very narrow vision—to bear on old problems, examining only "relevant" information and ignoring the rest. But the expert can become myopic, telescopic, microscopic. This is the weakness of the expert.
We don’t typically think about expertise as having weaknesses. Experts are honored for their clearsightedness, not derided for their myopia. And while their research do indeed provide valuable insights, their narrow focus can distract our attention like a good magic trick. Like everything, the benefits of an expert come at a cost.
The illusions of expertise don’t have us totally fooled, fortunately. Consider characters like Matlock, House, and Sherlock Holmes. They all defy expertise with an instinct for examining the context—the environment—for details, details to determine guilt, discover the cause of disease, or solve the mystery. We know—somehow, somewhere—our collective culture knows that we need more than expertise.
We do have a place for this kind of knowledge. We call it wisdom. And while I wouldn’t exactly call House’s instincts “wisdom,” I do think his instincts are learned. Wisdom is often defined as insight borne of long experience. It’s grounded in context, and can’t be uprooted from it.
Good proverbs have this sort of earthiness in them. They often use concrete imagery and nature metaphors—context. They draw us out of our byte-sized information and open up the world. They bring the wide world into our small one. And as we hold together these two worlds, we become the connection between them.
But McLuhan and Postman weren’t alone. None other than G K Chesterton also derided the expert. In his book, Orthodoxy, he writes, “Our civilization has decided, and very justly decided, that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men. It wishes for light upon that awful matter, it asks men who know no more law than I know, but who can feel the things that I felt in the jury box. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.”
Postman argues that one cannot be an expert about “childrearing, lovemaking, and friend-making.” Sorry Dr Phil.
The expert is created for one purpose, Postman argues, and that is to solve a particular problem. To say nothing about how the problem is understood or whether worthwhile questions are being asked. But the expert brings expertise—a very narrow vision—to bear on old problems, examining only "relevant" information and ignoring the rest. But the expert can become myopic, telescopic, microscopic. This is the weakness of the expert.
We don’t typically think about expertise as having weaknesses. Experts are honored for their clearsightedness, not derided for their myopia. And while their research do indeed provide valuable insights, their narrow focus can distract our attention like a good magic trick. Like everything, the benefits of an expert come at a cost.
The illusions of expertise don’t have us totally fooled, fortunately. Consider characters like Matlock, House, and Sherlock Holmes. They all defy expertise with an instinct for examining the context—the environment—for details, details to determine guilt, discover the cause of disease, or solve the mystery. We know—somehow, somewhere—our collective culture knows that we need more than expertise.
We do have a place for this kind of knowledge. We call it wisdom. And while I wouldn’t exactly call House’s instincts “wisdom,” I do think his instincts are learned. Wisdom is often defined as insight borne of long experience. It’s grounded in context, and can’t be uprooted from it.
Good proverbs have this sort of earthiness in them. They often use concrete imagery and nature metaphors—context. They draw us out of our byte-sized information and open up the world. They bring the wide world into our small one. And as we hold together these two worlds, we become the connection between them.
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