The Before Times

In my last post, I referenced a time period in my life that I’ve began referring to in my head as “the Before Times.” I also consider them to be “the Good Times,” times before certain decisions were made. I don’t know for certain, but I suspect that I will be referencing that concept more frequently over the next few months, so I thought it worthwhile to talk about what I mean by this, what that time entailed, and why I was thinking about it a lot to begin with.

Elizabeth and I had been married about 3 years, and we had gotten this fantastic apartment. Dual income and no kids, we were living the lives of successful post-grad-school professionals. I was still pondering “what next,” and we were very actively involved in creative ministries in our local faith community. I had not changed careers yet. I was helping people, every day. We were dreaming about what we wanted for our lives. Netflix subscriptions still mailed DVDs every month. The Internet was not yet in everyone’s pocket.

There was this specific moment that I recall in which I was home from work, and was looking out the window later in the evening as several others began returning from their workdays. I remember them seeming obviously stressed, obviously having put in a long day (given the time), and thinking that I was thankful to not be in the corporate machine. I never wanted to be in the corporate machine. I was, in that regard content.

Through a series of life events, I made a career change that was a great financial move, but entailed being drawn into the corporate world with which I never anticipated being involved. I didn’t know how negative an impact that would have at first. I wouldn’t learn until much later. I remember our oldest daughter being born just before that career change…the time that I was able to spend with her. After the career change, the time vanished, but in a deceptively subtle way that you don’t notice as it’s happening. It was years before she regained that time. I shudder to think that perhaps our youngest never had that time.

I realized this when I was briefly unemployed last summer. Those sorts of crisis events have a way of giving you space to focus on what’s important. I’m blessed to be out of the corporate world now and am regaining my faculties.

There’s something else that contributed to those times, all those years ago, being better. Technology had reached a point where it was helpful in many aspects of our lives. There was a “sweet spot”, as it were. We’ve passed that now. We’ve reached a point in which we’re willingly serving the technology instead of the technology serving us.

As I think back to those times, I remember an idea that I had once to write a book, sort of a memoir, about all of the places that we had lived and some of the neighbors we had encountered. I may have even started a manuscript for it somewhere, long ago. We’ve had a lot of neighbors over the years, and I’m amazed to think about how our lives have impacted each other, briefly been a part of each other. Those are holy encounters, encounters which are sadly less prevalent, or at least less appreciated, now in the age in which we serve our technology.

I want to go back to the Before Times. I entertain this desire occasionally by watching television series from that period. I would love to go back and re-make some decisions, but, as Billy Joel pointed out, we can’t go back, only forward. I’m wondering what from that time I can bring forward into this time, because I’m convinced that our family will be better for it.

Prayerfully, that will be a success.

Into the future we go….

Wisdom in the Past Tense

I’ve been reminiscing quite a bit lately about a time, a little over a decade ago, in which I’m convinced the world was a better place. Certainly our life as a family was in a better place, at least, but that isn’t the overall theme of this post. We were living in a different state, then, and had made close friends with a couple several years older than we were. I miss that relationship more than I can express today, as we enter a difficult period of life (perhaps more on that in a later post), because, whatever we went through in those days, this couple had experienced at some level. Job changes, moves, the birth of our first child, the loss of grandparents…they had experienced these life events, and were there to give us support, encouragement, and wisdom. We could learn how to walk through those events because of their experiences before us.

Historically, human beings have looked to people older than them for wisdom. Wisdom is an interesting thing. There’s an entire genre of Biblical writing dedicated to it, and we all crave it, even though we may call it by a different name. In the same way that the knowledge that you are not alone gives strength, the knowledge that someone else has experienced what you are experiencing (not in the abstract, but someone with whom you are actually close) and can give relevant advice is so life-giving. Even if that person gives no advice and is just present with you as you walk through a point in life, the awareness of their experience causes their presence to give you strength.

“Respect your elders” used to be the advice given to children, and gray hair was seen as a sign of honor.

Culturally and, I think, Biblically, there is a responsibility that comes with being that elder. There is, or at least should be, a social contract of sorts that says you will be present in the lives of your younger friends, that you will endeavor to give the best advice that you can when called upon, and to eschew the giving of advice on a area in which you don’t have experience. Getting older isn’t just getting discounts and free meals…you’ve lived through some stuff, and now you have a responsibility to assist others who are living through the same stuff after you.

In academia, this showed up in subtle ways. Older sources are respected, weighed more heavily. Newer research must stand up against rigorous review in order to contradict what has been known for some time. This places greater checks and balances against error or…dare I say this?….fake news. Today, though, in most disciplines, this is not the case. In technology specifically, newer is always better, older is always bad. That shiny new idea is to be revered simply because someone was able to do it, never bothering to ask whether or not it might be a good idea. Respecting the wisdom of elders here is almost impossible, because the elders are expected to abandon their experience in favor of the shiny new idea. The hive mind demands it. Old is bad. In with the new.

Which leads me to entertain the idea: what if we’ve created a world in which it’s impossible to trust in the wisdom of our elders?

What if we’ve created a world in which it’s impossible to trust in the wisdom of our elders?

What if we’ve ensured that nothing will function “the old way”, or at least not well (think of out-dated software)? What if we’ve altered the world so irrevocably that we’ve created enough black swan events that the wisdom of our elders doesn’t…even can’t…apply? Think about this dystopia for a moment. Events that can so drastically change society that there is no going back can, I would argue, invalidate certain specific wisdom by definition. Experiencing something like this once every few generations is recoverable. In my lifetime alone, though, I’ve seen so many….the invention of the Internet, the normalization of hate that followed the election of the first Black president of the U.S., the social upheaval during the Covid pandemic, artificial intelligence…each of which has shifted our culture in dramatic ways, ways from which it will not return. So many of these events in such a short period of time could cause some wisdom to just not apply any longer, and all of these events are events of our own creation.

I’m no longer young. I’ve gone through a lot of things in my life, and have things left to live through. As one gets older, though, there’s a certain comfort that experience brings. When moving to a new area, starting a new job or a new career, embarking on a new life journey, there is comfort and direction found in the ability to assume that, because certain things tend to go a certain way, those certain things are or are not good ideas in a given scenario. If we’ve managed to make our existence so unpredictable by our constant disruptions that we can longer count on this experience, then we may well have invalidated the wisdom of many who have gone before us. The hive mind wins. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

That is perhaps the most dystopian future that I can imagine, one that can’t be salvaged short of Divine intervention.

Image attribution: Thomas Hawk under Creative Commons.

Second Nature: A Theological Idea

Something has happened to me that I never anticipated. Words that I never imagined saying escaped my lips this week.

I’ve become a morning person.

I have no idea how this happened (a friend’s response was words to the effect of “welcome to being old”), but it has. I’m routinely up 30 minutes before my alarm, often with two hours of quiet before anyone else in the house is awake. I eventually stopped fighting it, and accepted that I now have this wonderfully quiet time in which to pray, journal, and be productive. So, fresh cup of coffee in hand, I start with trying to just focus on God each morning.

Which is difficult. Oh, so difficult.

Almost immediately as my brain begins to wake up (see the previous reference to coffee), the concerns of the day begin to crowd in. All of the things that I haven’t written down are spinning in my head. All of the day-to-day things that need to be done are pressing in, even before I’ve consulted my to-do list. Because we live in a material space, it’s really difficult to be aware of anything beyond that. And, almost all of the things crowding into my head at this point are material, at least in the sense that they involve physical things (“wow, the kids didn’t pick up their toys again in this room”) or the practical (“I need to schedule the maintenance appointment for the car”). These are things that I can observe, things that have a concrete outcome, things that just need to be done.

Since my Easter reflections, though, I can’t get rid of this awareness (when I can quiet myself enough) that, beyond the white-noise of our lives, there is this extended reality that, while not immediately observable, is more real than the concrete. The realm of the spiritual. The part of our existence from which we become increasingly isolated because of our excessive focus on empirical data.

Now, as certain readers of this begin to rage that I’m anti-science or some such, I’m not. Empiricism has its place. I’m just asserting that that place is not to be worshipped or deified, which currently seems to be the religion of the day. I’m cautioning against scientific reductionism…the audacity to assume that because we know everything about a thing, that we know the thing.

The reason that I bring this up here is not to re-state my previous post, but rather to expand with this idea that I can’t let go of: that the salvific process of choosing to follow Christ fundamentally alters what we think of as the human condition. We are very different once that happens. Human, but in a way alien as well, in the sense that our humanity is somehow changed.

Hear me out before thinking that my sanity has finally escaped my grasp. After Pentecost, it was established that Christ-followers receive the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity, as part of the justification event. I was raised in an atmosphere in which the work of the Holy Spirit was somewhat minimized to “conviction” or to some form of inspiration. What I think I’m beginning to see is that, as the Holy Spirit somehow joins with a person who is otherwise in a fallen condition, a regenerative event takes place that makes us, though still human, somehow very different. I think that this difference is somehow instinctively detectable by those who have not had the experience, and thus they become uncomfortable. I also think that the experience is frequently barely registered by those who have it, because of the crowded landscape of observable data that I mentioned above.

I’m getting this hypothesis from a few references: Romans 8:9 and 8:16, I Corinthians 3.16, Ephesians 2:6, Colossians 3:4, I John 3:1-10.

I’m also not in anyway suggesting that this result in a mindset of “the other,” in which Christ-followers view those who do not follow Christ as somehow less or deserving of disdain. In fact, the event that I’m discussing should have quite the opposite effect when realized.

To summarize, I wonder if, at the moment of decision to follow Christ, our humanity is somehow and suddenly different because of the Holy Spirit’s “moving in?” I’m holding onto this lightly because someone (including you, dear reader) could present a persuasive argument to the contrary. If I’m right, though, it changes so much of how we see our day-to-day, forcing a re-prioritization of our concerns.

The Way Back Machine

I’m beginning to feel like the grumpy old man who complains about what kids these days are watching and listening to, rambling on about how none of it is as good in quality as what we had. I suppose it’s inevitable in a way. All of my holiday gift cards are being spent on television shows from the 90’s and mid-00’s, when we were first married. Objectively, some of it is bad (mostly the 90’s stuff, but honestly, you really can’t help but dig that dystopian, post-apocalyptic vibe), but some of it was really good. In any case, it’s been taking most of my free time this winter.

This nostalgia thing is becoming serious.

In a sense, it’s a sign, not a symbol, and it points back to some really fun times that we had in our early marriage. I’m sure that it’s normal to reminisce about “back before we had kids,” so I can’t be alone in this. I also remember…and miss…our faith community and friends from those days. We were still living in the city where we had gone to grad school, and still had many of those connections. We were very active in the arts, in our faith community, and full of optimism for the future. For whatever reason, it’s much more difficult to make those tight friendships in New England. It’s also exponentially more difficult to find a faith community in New England. As we have searched for both, I’ve found myself missing those days of 10 + years ago much more profoundly, which I think has been informing my nostalgic memory trips.

Our local faith community had a theatre group in which we were leaders, and it took so much of our time. I loved every moment of it, but eventually, we just burned out. We were so busy, all the time, and we needed a sabbath time to refresh ourselves, to take a break, to think about things. That was ultimately only a year or so before we moved away, although that wasn’t the plan then, but I remember this painful realization when our stepping away for a time to recharge wasn’t received well. We began going to other faith communities to get some time away, and found ourselves viewed as pariahs by some in the one that we had attended. It was painful.


Shortly after Christmas festivities were over this year, there was conversation about how our extended family has always remained close, regardless of distance and regardless of faith communities attended. The comment was made that we are uncommon in that sense, that the experience we had 10 years is far more common. That’s troubling to me.

I understand it, though. A local church has so much to keep up with, so many needs to meet, and it exists to focus on those needs, those people. It’s easy to de-prioritize anything outside of that sphere. In that way, while it’s easier now than ever to stay in touch with friends who live far away, it’s not common to talk to them every day as you once did. The typical experience that I’ve had, however, is that moving away is the equivalent of leaving an employer on bad terms. That’s indicative of a deep-rooted misperception of how the Church was designed to work.

I still view myself as belonging to the same Church as all of those dear friends from years ago, even though their ministry focus is different than mine now. My ecclesiological position (and I don’t think it’s so revolutionary), is that there is only one Church, and that all of us who follow Christ are part of it. I don’t think that means that we’re under some sort of artificial obligation to stay in close touch with people who move on to other faith communities, but I also don’t think that we’re under an artificial obligation to cut ties with them, and it’s the second case that I’ve observed happen frequently in my life.

I supposed maybe I’m sensitive to this because we’ve moved a lot. A discontented wanderlust seems my burden to bear. As we’ve lived in different parts of the country and have seen how other Believers express our common faith, it’s expanded my view of our relationship with God dramatically. I’m hopeful for a day when I can stay in touch easily with others if we move on again.

Even better, I’m hopeful for a day when I re-connect with those dear friends from my past.

That would be truly nostalgic.

Dehumanizing by Distance

A long time ago, I read an article (which I lament not bookmarking, because I can never find it now) that discussed a study regarding how drivers viewed other drivers as compared to how they viewed pedestrians. The findings of the study were basically that drivers viewed pedestrians as more human, and thus afforded them more forgiveness and lenience if the pedestrian made a decision that the driver viewed as stupid. Conversely, other drivers were viewed as less human, more likely to receive the driver’s anger and contempt. The thought process was that, when we’re locked away inside of metal vehicles, we have difficulty seeing each other as fellow human beings, and are more likely to become enraged and even violent with each other.

That study stayed with me, because I think that it’s onto something. It’s easy to feel hatred toward someone with whom we can’t relate or find common ground, and distance simply makes it psychologically more difficult to relate or find the common ground. When we have metal walls between each other, we become less than human in each others’ perspectives.

It turns out that it’s not just physical barriers that accomplish this dehumanization. The pandemic showed us this, I think, as we desperately turned to video screens to maintain some level of human contact, while realizing how poor a substitute it was for keeping in touch with our loved ones. The distance, the resolving of a person that we know into pixels, somehow alters our perspective of that person. If it’s someone that we don’t know, exponentially more so.

This is what I thought about when I read this article about the expansion of the use of drones in the war in Ukraine. This war, which, like most wars is completely senseless, has been the first wide-scale use of drone technology in full scale combat. Soldiers are taking other soldiers’ lives without ever being in shooting distance. They simply watch on a video screen as they pilot an airborne weapon from miles away, applying a video-game style of lethal force with real-world consequences.

Theologically and philosophically, I’m a pacifist. As all human beings are created in God’s image (even when they’re driving the other car), I don’t see God leaving open the option of taking another life. I see that principle as being as old as the Ten Commandments. This is why I see armed combat as wrong, because inherent in the action is the presupposition that the life of the person on the other side is somehow worth less than one’s own. The soldier from the other side is not another father, sister, or loved one. They are the other. They are the enemy.

We are currently seeing the largest war in Europe since World War II, and, like many wars, it’s simply about a dictator’s power grab. While I am forced to recognize the reality that armed conflict is necessary at times in order for a government to defend the citizens of its country, I think that a war fought by remote control is worse than the savagery of trench warfare. It is cold, and calculating, Human lives are eliminated with no opportunity to surrender or yield. Were a miracle like the Christmas Truce ever to be in the inclination of either side, it would be impossible to realize through a television monitor as one pressed the button that took more lives.

Lives that aren’t seen as lives. Just pieces being removed from the game board.

As I consider this through the lens of Advent, I ache for the time when our swords are beat into plowshares. Then, at least, we will be beyond the point of constantly trying to kill each other. In the meantime, let us pray that this war ends soon.