Father's Day, Black Boxes and Funny Feet

It’s Father’s Day today in our part of the world.

The world has also just heard that the ‘black box’ of the Egypt Air aircraft that recently crashed into the Mediteranean Sea, has been recovered.

So with these two things in mind, it is a good time to be reminded of the impact of fathers.

Black Boxes

You see, the inventer of the black box was the brother of a very special friend of ours, and their father had a vital part to play in both their lives.  

The inventor was David Warren.  He died in 2010 age 85.  He was an Australian Scientist.

David Warren with a prototype of the black box

source - Wikipedia

A while back his daughter gave an interview about her dad to the ABC and the article included this story:

David's father died in a plane crash in 1934. 

An Anglican missionary, he was travelling between Tasmania and Victoria by plane when it crashed into Bass Strait.

One of the last presents he gave his 8 year old son was a crystal radio.

The crystal set and a daydream many years later would help spur David Warren's idea for a black box.

Little did his Dad know that a kind, thoughtful and practical gift to his son to encourage his creativity and stretch his mind, would be the catalyst for a device that would help make air travel safer for millions of air-travellers every day.

Challies.com recently posted a link in his A-la-Carte to a YouTube video about the black box. Here it is.  At about the 1.03 minute mark you will see a document authored by ‘D  Warren’ - that is the man we are talking about.

And here is another article that gives some more background to the invention, and another short documentary video:

and an interview with David in 1999.

But even though David’s father didn’t live to see his son become famous, his legacy through the invention, lives on.

I can only think that this father must have prayed much for his children, for not only did his son come to be active in youth ministry, lead Bible Studies and invent a world changing device, but this same father had a daughter who went on to impact hundreds of lives (and thousands indirectly) in at least 26 countries around the world. 

Funny Feet

That daughter, Grace became one of the first Australian female surgeons and dedicated her life to relieving the pain and suffering of Leprosy Patients.  She served with the Leprosy Mission and travelled the world surgically rectifying ‘funny feet’ —as she calls them—  and giving people their lives back.  She also worked on hands. Her skills with leprosy flowed over to help many patients with problems resulting from Diabetes.  My husband’s hand (badly damaged when a passenger in a car crash) has virtually full function due to her intervention.  There is a reason she is often called ‘Amazing Grace’.

She gave so many of the poorest people in our world, who were shamed and outcast due to leprosy, the restoration of their honour and worth as well as the ability to once again care for themselves and earn a living.

She has made sure to leave her knowledge for the world in her medical textbook ‘The Care of Neuropathic Limbs”.  She was granted Fellowships with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and the Royal College in England who also elected her a Hunterian Professor in 1987.  

She told her story in her book ‘Doctor Number 49 and various other articles in magazines and chapters in books have been written about her, including in the Australian Book of Heroism.

Though her earthly father died when she was only 5 years old, it is because of talent inherited from her father and the skill given and enabled by her heavenly Father that she attributes her success.  In an interview with Sydney University Alumni magazine she said:

“I was never a good student,” she says of her school and university days. “But I was practical, good with my hands. That was something I inherited from my father, who had a great aptitude for everything mechanical.”……. 

“It is a gift given to me by God, and dedicated to his service, he gives me the skill”

Interestingly it was because her mum was a widow that she was given special consideration for acceptance into University.  Through the loss of her earthly father in the first civil avaition disaster in Australia, God enabled a great gain to bless many around the world with the very practical love of her Heavenly Father.

Both Grace and David have received honours in the “Order of Australia" awards.  I’m sure there can’t be too many siblings to have both received such awards!

Both she and her brother also both have entries in the Encyclopaedia of Australian Science.

Never underestimate the impact a father can have on his children 

- how you awaken and direct your children’s interests stimulating their God-given talents

- how your prayers for your children are important

- how your example will be impacting even after you are gone

But most of all, never forget that above all, you need to entrust your kids into the hands of their Heavenly Father, and teach them that their relationship with their Heavenly Father is of far greater importance than even with their earthly father - you want them to be all that their Heavenly Father wants them to be, not just who you want them to be.  In His hands, they can impact untold lives in this world, and impact untold lives for eternity too!

Smartphone and technology - Lessons from their Power to Probe our Privacy

The New York Times recently ran an article about the court case between Apple and FBI in regard to 'legal' access to hack into smart phones.  The article concluded with the following about our increasingly technological 'smartphone' world:

The Internet of Things will follow a similar path. Employers and insurance companies may require you to wear health-tracking devices. It may become impossible to find cars without cameras and sensors. Every fridge will come with cameras inside whether you like it or not.

"From a historical perspective, we're entering into a very new era," said Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. Not long ago, we were living in a world in which surveillance was difficult. "In the past, you and I would have a conversation in person. No record would be made; nobody would have access to it. I wrote things on paper; I burned them in my fireplace. They were gone forever."

But in the absence of technical and legal protections, technology is upturning those presumptions.

"Now we have a surveillance-enabled world," Ms. Granick said. "It's cheap, and it's easy. The question that society has to ask is, Is that what we really want?"

The content of the article certainly bears careful consideration.

It's easy to respond with fear - but instead we should respond with careful consideration of the circumstances and trust in our Creator.

It's easy to respond with blind acceptance - but instead we should respond with care and caution looking beyond immediate pleasure and convenience to future consequences.  We will reap what we sow, so we need to be careful what we are sowing.

But it is good to think about the lessons we can learn.

1.The fear of 'eyes and ears' observing and recording our every move is 'small stuff'.

 If we are fearful of being 'listened in' to in all our life and conversations, how much more should we be fearful of the what God our eternal Judge can do.   This exposure and recording of our lives is just a drop in the ocean in comparison to what God will do on judgement day. One day our every idle and careless word will be played back.  Don't totally dismiss this fear of exposure without examining it in the light of the ultimate eternal exposure.  This is a challenge for our own lives, but also maybe a means to help people to actually tune into their fear and to bring a greater awareness of the fear they should have of God, who can do more than an earthly court and will decide whether we have eternal acceptance in God's presence or eternal rejection from Him forever.

2. What a privilege we have in Christ.  While we can fear all the stuff we have ever done and said, we can gain comfort from the fact that if we are forgiven in Christ, our sin is gone forever.  Though God has the power to bring every recording back, He chooses not to take the opportunity to incriminate us yet again.   He chooses to not ever use that evidence against us ever again.  We don't need to fear that.  Sin forgiven is sin removed - while we may still feel its effects here on earth and 'remember' it to be able to learn lessons from it, as far as eternal record is concerned, it is gone. Yes we will be judged in regard to our 'works' for the purposes of rewards, but our 'sin' list for the purposes of eternal condemnation has been wiped clean.  God not only has the perfect record to lay accusation at the feet of the sinner, but He also has the perfect eraser so that as saints, our 'slate' is clean. There is no hidden hard-drive record or 'cloud' to pull data from.  We don't deserve it, but we have been given the verdict 'clean' - no dirt to dig up on this one!  Let the growing levels of insecurity in our world (even from the risks of exposure through devices in our homes), remind you of your eternal security in Christ.

We have no need to fear those who can kill the body or destroy a reputation or expose the'nakedness' of our private moments, not when we have chosen instead to fear the One who has the power over eternal life and death and we have come to Him in repentance and faith and know His forgiveness.  Instead we are now the objects and recipients of His love, clothed in the righteousness of His Son.

Yes, be careful, be cautious, and be wise with technology - don't be so consumed with today's pleasure and ease that you are blind to future destructive consequences....BUT also remember to fear God, more than man and his methods or machines.  And let that fear either drive you to repentance if you have not yet allowed the Saviour of the World to rescue you from sin, or let it drive you to love and thankfulness if you do know the Saviour.

Social Media's Empty Promises of Connection

"we are and therefore I am"

 This is how honour/shame collective society has been described.

 "I share and therefore I am" 

This is how Sherry Turkle, researcher and author of "Reclaiming Conversation" describes our modern social media saturated society in the TED TALK above - Please take the time to watch it.  

We are obsessed with connection, but we are avoiding conversation and ending up with isolation.

She talks about how we fear being alone and yet with social media we are constantly trying to overcome loneliness.  And in the process we are cutting ourselves off from the very thing we want.

She says:

• Make room for solitude
• Reclaim spaces for conversation - like the kitchen
• We need to listen to each other - including the boring bits

She says people tell her: "Life is hard, relationships are filled with risk. And then there's technology, simpler, hopeful, optimistic, ever young...."

It is true - life is hard, relationships are filled with risk.  But we will never enjoy the beauty of the mountaintop without the risk of the climb.  Social Media tells us the lie that we can get all the beauty of relationships without the face-to-face work of relationships, and we are trying to gain identity from social media's promise of connection.

We need to stop, think, pause and listen to each other and not just be rushed to get onto the next thing, or write the next text message.  We need to value the person in front of us and not keep treating them as unimportant.  And as Sherry says, we need to be willing to let people talk and be willing to listen - to tune in even to the boring bits.  We need to think more about what the person needs to say, not just what we think we need to hear.

While technology may be useful to some degree, it will never give us real relationships or identity.

And on the other hand, maybe our fear of solitude and quietness testifies to the fact that we are seeking identity and belonging from people first rather than God.

You see if we converse and truly connect with God in relationship, even when we are alone in the sense of not being with other human beings, we aren't really alone.

A sweet little girl that I used to babysit many years ago came home from pre-school one day and in answer to her mother's question, "So who did you play with in the playground today?"....she said "no-one, I just played by myself, but that's ok because I just talked with Jesus while I played"

If we stop seeking significance, honour, belonging and the feeling of being 'wanted' or 'needed' by people around us and instead seek relationship with God first, we will be free to take the face-to-face relationship risks and do the hard work of listening and 'being' with others.
But we will also not be reliant on others and constantly keeping up social media and virtual 'connection' with people at the expense of the real people in front of us. 
We will also not be fearing solitude, because we will know the comfort and presence of God with us, even if we are not having other people around us. 

While God created us for social interaction, we must not let that social interaction become an idol that we feel we can't live without...it won't deliver want it promises.

'in an age of separation'

Several of our blogs have focused on the Shame dynamic strongly emerging in Western culture.

What may be some of the various catalyst's driving such a situation?

• social media is certainly contributing to what is being termed by some as 'shame storming'

• the human heart, sinful and ever bent on putting others down in order to lift ourselves up, is definitely a factor

• the migration of many folks from 'shame cultures' to the West is sure to be a contributor too

• the fact that the West has long left the priority of acknowledging God in His position of absolute truth and authority and has settled for the idea that everyone is free to have their own 'truth' has left the door wide open for subjective group standards and shaming 

• this in turn spawns the unwritten life-value that its other people's opinions and approval that one has to seek for success and identity rather than God's opinion and approval

• when people live for approval in the eyes of others instead of the eyes of God, there is nothing to fall back on for identity and significance if a person fails to get that approval from others, so they will strive for it 'with their whole heart, mind and strength'.  A person can easily be manipulated once this occurs, because they will almost sacrifice anything to gain it and hold onto it.  It goes without saying that fear of losing it, or shame for losing it, becomes a person's sole behaviour motivator and modifier.

BUT is there something more to figure into this mix?

I just read a recommendation by Elyse Fitzpatrick for Ed Welch's book 'Side by Side'.  It's a book about helping average church members know what it means to counsel and come alongside one-another in the day to day struggles of life.  Here is what Elyse said:

"Welch builds a vision of a Christian community that moves beyond platitudes and empty promises to deep, scriptural, Christlike relationships. You will find this book to be a helpful primer on how to ask for and provide help in the midst of an age of separation."
—Elyse M. Fitzpatrick, counselor; speaker; author, Found in Him

The part of her comment I want to draw your attention to is:  "help in the midst of an age of separation".

I truly believe that one reason that could be added to my list above of why the dynamic of shame is suddenly coming to the fore, is because over many decades we have become a group of humanity (particularly in the West) that has become less and less deeply 'connected'.

We were made for relationship and connection.  

Just because society has become less connected hasn't eliminated our desire for connection.

What has contributed to this level of dis-connection?

• many years ago there was no car, let alone ones that are all closed up like a bubble.  People walked, or rode a horse or donkey, or travelled in an (often open) carriage.  

• in the Australian city where I grew up and now in my part of the world, in urban Africa, and in many other cities around the world, houses used to have no or low open wire fences.  Now we often have high fences and walls.

• years ago, kids walked or rode bikes to school chatting with one another along the way, now a parent takes them in the family car.

• years ago there was no TV, let alone internet, netflix or youtube and families talked over dinner and after dinner

• years ago most mums didn't work and kids could have plenty of time to chat with mum before school and after

• years ago many people lived in the same neighbourhoods all their lives and often attended the same church generation after generation.

• years ago people had long chats over the fence, over a 'cuppa tea' at the kitchen table or wrote long well thought out letters to each other

• years ago almost all homes had kids living with both biological parents, unless the child was an orphan due to the death of the parents.

• years ago people greeted each other as they passed along the way and often knew the 'person' behind the face.

But now...

life is somewhat different.

- cities, 

urban living, 

the motor car, 

ease of travel and communication, 

women working outside the home 

and our hectic lifestyle 

have propelled us into dis-relational lifestyles.

We are obsessed with 'privacy' - possibly as an 'over-reaction' to village gossip and the fear of 'big brother'!...but our idolisation of privacy has also given us isolation....

....and yes then along came such inventions as 'facebook', and 'twitter'.

Suddenly with these on-line connection opportunities we believe we have a place where we think we can keep our 'privacy' and get 'connection' as well.  After all we can get 'connected' from the 'privacy' of our own home, car, office, bedroom or even bathroom.  We rush headlong into what was proposed to be the answer to our relational void.

We were desperate to be able to feel 'connected' to people.

But sadly, while not all bad, this 'connection' is filled with a great deal of 'fool's gold'.  It doesn't deliver all that it promises.  

Do 500 'likes' or 1000 'followers' equate to 2 friends you know you can pour your heart out to and have regular deep and helpful conversations - friends you know well and who know you well ...and maybe a few more who while maybe not 'heart-to-heart' level of friends are lifelong connections who still know you well?

Do one sentence snippets and a photo posted here and there equate to deep heart-to-heart exchanges? 

Having coffee with friends is often eclipsed by the smart phone - its not unusual to see 3 or 4 friends gather at a coffee shop and they are each on their own iPhone and none of them are actually talking to each other!  I've now heard of some coffee shops that are 'smart-phone-free' zones to try to get people actually talking to each other!

As I've mentioned before, a friend of mine in Australia has a ministry she calls 'tea an talks' or 'coffee and chats', which is simply just to invite someone over to her home for a cup of tea and cookies and to relax and chat for a couple of hours.  She has had so much positive feedback from such times - people saying 'it was just so good to talk'.

I want to encourage you to take the opportunities you have and make more opportunities to give people space to feel free to have extended time to talk.  

We live in a very superficial world.  We have access to more information than ever before but most people go no further than the surface.  Open the door for folk to come in to your life and feel relaxed and unhurried enough to share. 'Bear one another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ'.  Close the gap of separation. How well are we doing at that?  

Especially these days I am so reminded of the opportunities others may have that I don't have right now.  It's not easy to have almost no long term friends with whom I can 'grow' with.  Living as an expat in a foreign country means you tend to connect with other expats and missionaries that are hardly here than they are gone again.  For both my husband and I, we have to live with the fact that we just start to build a good friendship with someone and then they return to their home country. In fulfilling the call of God on our lives to be here, we are separated from all our biological family.  Then for me now days, with limited mobility, I hardly ever have opportunity to have deep heart-to-heart conversations with other women.  

So I say, don't neglect the opportunities you have - both to build others up but also to know the blessing of having others build you up in the process.  When we don't reach out to others and develop deep friendships, not only do we cheat others, but we also deprive ourselves.  It's not an opportunity that we can assume we will always have ready access to.

People around us are desperate for 'connection' in our age of separation.  Their hearts are crying and yearning for opportunities to share the deep troubles of their hearts and the deep questions of their soul and just fellowship of heart.  But instead we are captive to the notion that everyone should 'respect each others privacy' and not encroach on another person's time.  But the body of Christ is supposed to be a place where we  can bear our souls and build each other up, counsel and encourage each other, confront sin with love, and support one another.  

Experiencing the fulness and blessing of 'loving one another' doesn't happen with superficial connection.

Take the first step....invite others to share your time and space, not via a touchpad on an iPhone or iPad, but face to face, over a coffee for a few hours.  

Help rebuild our communities into ones that interact the way God made us to, communities which in the midst of 'separation' are yearning for connection, for love.  

Seek to be a blessing to others and in turn you will be blessed.

Don't be ashamed to hang onto your pen!

photo credit

I don't feel old, but maybe its a sign of the reality of my age as I pass another birthday that puts me closer to 5 decades than 4, that I still prefer to sometimes hold a book and a pen in my hand rather than an electronic device.

I get excited when my 4 year old African 'grand-daughter' (who is proficient at playing learning games apps on her dad's touch screen smart phone) , comes to visit and says 'Gogo, I want to write!' ....so she goes and gets her little pink plastic 'lap table' from under my day bed with her pens and pencils and crayons and notebook and colouring book to 'write'!

('Gogo' is the Shona word for Grandma and is pronounced closer to a goo-goo sound as in 'book')

I spend hours at my laptop each day, researching, reading and typing away and there are many times I am very thankful I was taught typing so I can speed type - it means I can get thoughts down much faster and with less hand strain, than using a pen and paper.

But there are times that a keyboard and computer screen just don't 'make the grade'.  Drawing a chart or diagram on a computer is often too slow for me to get down what is whirling around in my mind. I need a pen and paper for that.  So alongside the files buried in the computer hard-drive is a ringbinder file full of 'jottings'.

I must say, that in our modern world of technology its almost too easy to feel ashamed if you don't use an iPad or iPhone and instead you carry a pen and notebook in your pocket.

But I want to say 

DON'T FEEL ASHAMED!   

&  

 DON'T GIVE UP YOUR PEN AND PAPER!

My hairdresser commented the last time I saw her, that our huge local power problems have reminded her that all our access to information is subject to power!  If Google was to collapse, or our power supply fails suddenly, we have no access to data. But this is not the only reason to not give up your pen.

Our brains actually function differently with our fingers on a keyboard and looking at a screen than with a pen and paper in our hands...and the pen and paper comes out on top!

I found a TedTalk on YouTube about the importance of the pen, by a young guy in his 20s, Jake Weldmann, who is the youngest Master Penman and an advocate of keeping the pen 'alive'.

He also explained that writing with your own hand is better for imprinting data into the brain than typing it.  He warned that although he is also a user of technology, if we are not careful, our 'clever' modern generation might find that technology is fast-tracking ourselves into illiteracy!

Watch the video here

He isn't the only one finding negatives with our 'attachment' to the electronic keyboard and computer screen.

Some University lecturers are even prohibiting tech devices in their lecture rooms and forcing students to take hand written notes.  (we are encouraged, since we do the same for certain parts of our discipleship programs).

An article in the Washington Post tells of a Professor of Media Studies at New York University, Clay Shirky who "allowed his students to bring laptops, tablets and phones into class and use them at will. But he just told students to put them away. He explains why below in a piece that first appeared on medium.com."

Writing on paper and reading a hard copy book is also good for our eyes.  While there are times I value the bright clear computer screen and the ability to enlarge the font, there are also other times when my eyes welcome the restfulness of a real book.  Sleep is also assisted by reading a 'real book' but is significantly hindered by the light of the screen in reading an e-book.

MedicalDaily  in a recent article listed some points about why we should put aside the ''e-reader' and start reading paper books again.

1. You're missing out on important information: "A 2014 study found that readers who used Kindles were less competent in recalling the plot and events in the book than those who used paperbacks."
2. E-books get in the way of sleepytime: "A recent study out of Harvard University found that reading an e-book before bed lessened the production of an important sleep hormone known as melatonin. As a result, people took much longer to fall asleep, experienced less deep sleep, and were more fatigued in the morning."
3. Screens=Stress: Reading helps you de-stress faster or just as fast as listening to music, taking a walk, or having a cup of tea or coffee, according to a 2009 study. When researchers measured heart rate and muscle tension, they found that people relaxed just six minutes into reading.But reading on a device might cancel out this effect, and may even impact your stress levels negatively.

And what about the effect of technology on our devotional and church life.  

Although there are electronic forms of the Bible and Commentaries etc etc and they are extremely helpful (I use them), and there are Apps to help organise your prayer life (which I don't use but some folk say they find helpful), I wonder about the distance we are putting between ourselves and our real paper bible and a pen in our hand. ...the tactile reality is better to imprint truth into our brain and the distractions are fewer. 

A pen and paper are also not as socio-economically exclusive as technology devices.  While many in the Western world have the access and funds to be able to buy such devices in multiple forms, there are many in the world that don't have that privilege.  If we aren't careful we may sadly make 'books' and knowledge the privilege of the elite!...

And here is a note to preachers - as much as there may be some positives in preaching from an iPad, I would like to suggest differently.  It is much more tangibly clear that God's word is the authority when the 'flock' can see that their shepherd is speaking from his open Bible.  

If you are visiting Africa to preach, please don't use your iPad for your notes out in the village church, or maybe even in the city church.  Please don't set a standard that the 'most honourable' and 'high' positioned preachers must use technology - because that is how it will be viewed by most who will see you.  Allow the most poor and 'lacking in technology' listener to know that power in preaching doesn't come from access to technology but from God and His word.  Let them see that they are equal to you and we are all one in Christ Jesus - neither Jew or Gentile, neither slave or free............neither user of iPad or Pen! 

It seems I'm not alone in my concerns, as just today I received an email highlighting a link to an article by African-American Pastor HB Charles Jr about 'Little Screens and Corporate Worship'. That article and another by him a while back, On Technology and Transcendence, reveal the issue is not one we can just turn a blind eye to.  He said :

"While I am grateful for all the ways the technology makes our lives easier, I am concerned about anything that aids our trivialization of the Almighty. And any medium that gets in way of the message. As we integrate our gadgets into our worship lives – or before we do so – we should think long and hard about whether our gadgets dull our sense of the majesty of God in worship or help us to see and sense the supremacy of God more clearly and deeply and joyfully. Could it be that using mobile devices in worship can be just as dangerous as texting while driving?"

So whether you are a mum who likes to read, a student at University or a Pastor preparing sermon notes......don't just 'go with the flow' in our world's rivers of technology.  

As Christians we should be the ones to 'consider our ways', the ones to want to allow ALL to access knowledge, and to encourage literacy (both reading and writing).  

Maybe we should consider, for all the immense knowledge and power of God, He chose to write with his own 'finger' into stone when he gave Moses the Law - you can't get more tactile than that.  I'm not saying we must all go and carve into stone, but we should not be too quick to leave the 'tactile' behind.

So.....Think before you turn on the screen, and instead reach for a real book, paper and pen.

Is Social Media Accelerating the 'West' into Shame Culture status? Part 4

Yesterday I was sent a link to a very new Youtube video of a TedTalk in which Monica Lewinsky shares some of her story and what life has taught her...

In case you can't quite remember why that name is familiar - she was in the centre of the US Presidential marital infidelity scandal In 1998.

The Youtube video is absolutely fascinating and is called: "Monica Lewinsky - The Price of Shame"

In it she makes many very insightful comments on the issues of public shaming, not least in the social media context.

But most interesting are three facets of her speech  

1. The inextricable link between shame and death 

2. The 'foreverness' and 'everyoneness' of internet shaming

3. The world's culture-crisis of shaming and compassion as the answer

I want to comment in brief on each and quote from her speech, because I feel it is a superb modern day 'object lesson' that God can use in evangelism and discipleship in Western contexts especially.  In fact points 2 & 3 correlate almost totally with some of the points mentioned by 'mere orthodoxy' in Part 3 of this series of blog posts...

Understanding these issues will better help us to understand the dynamics of shame in every human being....

1.

She said:

"In 1998 I lost my reputation and my dignity - I lost almost everything and I almost lost my life"..."The public humiliation was excruciating, life was almost unbearable"

She later in the speech said:

"Fast forward to 2010. I was on the phone with my mum of September 2010....tyler clamente was secretly webcamed by his roommate while being intimate with another man.  When the online world learned of this incident the ridicule and cyber bullying ignited. A few days later Tyler jumped from the George Washington bridge to his death. He was 18.  My mom was beside herself about what happened to Tyler and his family and she was gutted with pain in a way that  I just couldn't quite understand.  And then eventually I realised she was reliving 1998. Reliving a time when she sat by my bed every night. Reliving a time when she made me shower with the bathroom door open. And reliving a time when both of my parents feared I would be humiliated to death - literally."

... Every day on line people, especaily young people who are not developmentally equipped to handle this, are so abused and humiliated that they can't imagine living to the next day, and some tragically don't. And there's nothing virtual about that."

..As Westerners we think about death in primarily physical terms - the death of our bodies.  But there is such a matter as 'death of identity' or 'death of relationship'.  We were created not only with a physical body but with a relational heart.  As I heard Pastor Charles Price recently quote from Pastor and Author Stuart Briscoe "when God created Adam, he created an individual.  When God created Eve He created society".  Physical death and physical pain isn't the only thing we fear - we also fear emotional/psychosocial pain and death.

2.

She went on to say:

"Research last year that determined that humiliation is a more intensely felt emotion than either happiness or even anger.

...Online technologically enhanced shaming is amplified, uncontained and permanently accessible.  The echo of embarrassment used to extend only as far as your family, village, school or community, but now its the online community too. Millions of people, often anonymously, can stab you with their words.  And that's a lot of pain. And there are no perimeters around how many people can observe you and put you in a public stockade.  There is a personal price to public humiliation and the growth of the internet has jacked up that price. ......

For nearly 2 decades now we have slowly been sowing the seeds of shame and public humiliation in our cultural soil both on and off line. Gossip websites, paparazzi, reality programming , politics, news outlets, and sometime hackers, all traffic in shame. .....It's led to....What Professor Nicholas Mills  calls a Culture of Humiliation....

Consider a few prominent examples just from the past 6 months alone ...

Snap Chat: the service which is used mainly by younger generations and claims that its messages only have the lifespan of a few seconds. You can imagine the range of content that that gets.  A third party app which SnapChatters use to preserve the lifespan of the messages, was hacked and 100,000 personal conversations, photos and videos were leaked on line to now have a lifespan of forever."

Isn't this a very good start to help people think about the realities of eternity? 

Daniel 12:2 says

 "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." (KJV) 

or as the New Living Translation says it

 "Many of those whose bodies lie dead and buried will rise up, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting disgrace."

As Westerners, traditionally we thought about the opposite of everlasting life as everlasting death and the physical pain and suffering of that.  But in this verse in Daniel the contrast of everlasting life is described as "shame and everlasting discgrace/contempt".  

Not only is it everlasting shame but it shame of the highest degree.  If we think that the SnapChat hack is extensive (accessible globally) and permanent (for the life of the internet - feels like forever), then when our secrets are revealed at the last day and everything hidden is laid bare (Hebrews  4:13, Luke 12:2,3), that will be a level of shaming that will make a SnapChat hack seem like 'child's play'.

This is an opportunity to bring the reality of eternity into the here and now - or at least a taste of it - at a time when public shaming is fast becoming the worst form of suffering one can inflict on another.  The meaning of total exposure and relational rejection, is being highlighted by social media, in a big way.

..3.

Monica also said:

".....this invasion of others is a raw material efficiently and ruthlessly mined packaged and sold at a profit. A marketplace has emerged where public humiliation is a commodity and shame is an industry. How is the money made? Click.  The more shame the more clicks. the more clicks the more advertising dollars.....all the while someone is making money off of the back of someone else's suffering.

....

The more we saturate our culture with public shaming the more accepted it is.

....

this behavioiur is a symptom of the culture we have created.

....

Public Shaming as a blood sport needs to stop.....we need to return to a long held value of compassion...on-line we have a compassion deficit, an empathy crisis.

.....

lets acknowledge the difference between speaking up for 'intention' from speaking up for 'attention'

....

the internet is the superhighway for the 'id',,,,

we need to communicate online with compassion, consume news with compassion, click with compassion....just imagine walking a mile in someone else's headline."

The cruelty and trauma of being publicly shamed and humiliated is becoming more widely experienced because its becoming more widely inflicted.  While it can give an opportunity to share the reality of of the immensity of eternal disgrace, it is also an opportunity for the church to demonstrate what it means that in Christ there is freedom from eternal shame and also  power to rise above earthly shame and shaming.  

Christians have a great opportunity to demonstrate compassion where Christ would demonstrate compassion, not least when there is confession and forgiveness for sin.  We can show kindness and love and a humility of heart that doesn't just point the finger but comes alongside fully aware of our own propensity to sin.  We can show grace and gentleness.  We can build others up instead of tearing others down.  We can encourage and praise instead shame and belittle.

Lets not just watch this culture-crisis of shaming as it passes along - lets take full advantage of the opportunities it brings to better share and demonstrate the realities of the gospel - the good news!

Is Social Media Accelerating the 'West' into Shame Culture status? - Part 3

In a previous blog about an article in the NY Times regarding social media, I made a few comments regarding shame.

Since then I was sent a link to an interesting on-line discussion by 'mere orthodoxy', working through the issues of public shaming in response to that same article.

I wanted to share just a few matters that were raised in that discussion that demonstrate so many honour/shame concepts that are embodied by Social Media, and its impact on our modern society....and to add a few personal comments....

*Social Media often acts as the Social Police

-when the absolutes of God's definition of right and wrong for ruling the internal conscience, and thus constraining behaviour, are dismissed,  there is not some neutral ground.  Instead, public opinion of right and wrong step in and public shame or honour is what rules and thus constrains behaviour.

*Social Media gives Social leverage to have some kind of power of voice on-line to participate and feel like they are 'contributing' to the community.

- we all yearn for significance, acceptance and some kind of honourable 'place' in our world.  When we don't recognise that the only way to truly satisfy that yearning is in Christ as acceptance before our Creator, we will seek it from people.  While God created us to live in community and relationship with other human beings, we were not created to have our 'honour' come primarily from people. We were created to be in relationship with God first, and then have a right relationship with people flow out of that.  When we seek primary relationship with other people we give people 'power' over us and seek power over others, that God never intended for us.  This is a destructive power that actually destroys community rather than building it.

*One panel member mentioned that normal 'discourse is not just about truth but about power' - my privilege (my background, education, status) gives my voice power and means your voice could be dismissed - but twitter allows people who feel normally dismissed to be able to have a voice of equal power and privilege(ie honour)

- this is entirely an honour/shame issue as in the previous point above.  When discourse becomes more about power than truth, its a sure sign that honour/shame is increasing.  When people are seeking personal honour in 'wrong' places, it is also a sure sign they are either not aware, not understanding or else choosing to refuse true honour from God.

*They also mentioned in this social media shaming culture there is a danger especially for Christians to get caught into a culture that has very little room for mercy and grace and taking the time to understand the context which can often be obscured in social media, especially in re-tweeting. 

- this is a very real and relevant caution. It could be all too easy for us as Christians to get caught up in the current that social media creates of seeking honour through 'followers' or by being part of the shaming culture.  We need to be ever careful of the danger zones of social media and the huge temptation they can be in the areas of honour seeking and lack of mercy and grace - mercy and grace that we would hope others would show us.

*When discourse is more on the side of power than truth, then any disagreement in discourse will be seen as a challenge to that power and be viewed with suspicion as a possible reduction of privilege. 

 - very true indeed! We must vigilantly guard against a culture that discourages or punishes disagreement - through ostracism and shaming.  We need to be very careful to differentiate between the freedom to disagree with an idea and the disdain of a person.  In a 'shame' oriented society or situation, there is very little space for an action to be separated from the person.  It's only when God's definitions of right and wrong and guilt is clear, that proper differentiation occurs between guilt and shame, what I do and who I am.  The provision of guilt based on God's objective absolute moral standards brings the benefit of freedom to disagree and discuss a matter, without the feeling of rejection as a person.

*They also spoke about the fact that people can get to the point where they live in fear of making any comment and words being exposed at any moment on social media, to the point where no-one is prepared to say anything.

- as per the above, this is the inevitable result of shaming. People no longer feel that they are free to put forward other perspectives which differ from the ones that hold 'power' (either individuals or group).  This stifles truth and creativity and also hampers success and prosperity.

*Social media can help us 'immanentize' the final judgement where everything will be made known - it can serve as a very real warning to be both careful of our words, as well as courageous enough to say something that before God would be acceptable.

- a timely reminder that we can fool ourselves that we can be careless with our speech with little consequence....social media has brought a very real reminder that we will all give account for what we say, one day it will be all exposed.  If we don't want what we say exposed, we need to ask why?  If its simply fear of man, we should still speak.  But if it is because it reveals that what our words are not godly, then its a timely warning!

*Social media is filled with the concepts of conformity....we need to be prepared to not define ourselves by what other people think of us and we should have the nerve to graciously say what is right even if other people may not agree with us.

  - AMEN!

'Is Social Media Accelerating the 'West' into Shame Culture status? - Part 2

I recently read a very interesting New York Times article which is an excerpt from what may prove to be a very interesting book!

Both the article and book are all about Shame and Social Media.

It tells the story of 'How one stupid tweet blew up Justine Sacco's Life'.  

She was on a flight to South Africa and on the way tweeted -

"  "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!" 

"

She turned off her phone and went to sleep....BUT before she even landed her tweet had gone viral and at the airport another twitter user was already there to take her photo and tweet it to the world!

She deleted her tweet, but by now thousands of others already had copied it.  There was no turning back the clock!  Her impulsive, poorly thought through but mis-understood joke inferring that Americans live in a such a 'bubble' that they think they are immune from the issues others in the world face, had risen up to bite her with public accusations across twitter accusing her of bigotry, and being a 'brutal nadir'.

The author of the article mentioned that he thought "Modernity had diminished shame's power to shame — or so I assumed."

He also said "Social media is so perfectly designed to manipulate our desire for approval," [and is] " a bid for the attention of strangers "

Of further interest are a couple of the 'comments' at the end of the article:

John N

Many of the social aspects of "social media" are shaping social norms in ways I find disturbing...... If social media means that the mob has more power to force conformity, then we all become less free and our society less diverse.

Pamela

every society has evolved a way of establishing and enforcing social norms. once, some used stoning with real stones. now on twitter folks throw verbal stones. real stones break your bones. twitter can hurt you too. 

I could make many comments about thinking before you speak, or the foolishness of making irony jokes across a global multi-cultural audience, or the need by people to treat others the way they want to be treated and not attack and shame, or the dangers of social media, or...or ....or.

However, what I want to hone in on is the 'shame' factor in it all. 

Anthropologically the 'West' is never categorised as a 'Shame Culture' - neither totally nor primarily dominated by shame.  Yet, as the objectiveness of absolute truth according to God's Word and thus a clear and united and consistent definition of right and wrong slips into the background of Western society, guilt according to that standard of right and wrong also slips away.  But it doesn't leave a vacuum.  Sin (doing 'wrong') doesn't disappear just because someone now says there is no absolute standard by which to decide right, wrong and guilt.  Instead, without sin being defined according to God's law (what is acceptable in His eyes and what He says is honourable), it becomes defined according to 'mob law'.  And 'mob law' will always be defined by what is acceptable and honourable in the eyes of those watching around us.  The 'creature', rather than the Creator, sets itself up as the determiner of what is good and evil, right and wrong.

As 'we' set our sights on approval from people rather than God, we also set ourselves up for the full force of the disapproval from people.  The issue of shame will not go away, while sinful human beings inhabit this earth - both because in our sinfulness we shame others, but primarily because shame and sin are inextricably linked and when sin entered the world, so did shame, and its here until we have new heavens and earth.

Social Media is just giving greater opportunity and platform to some aspects of our sinful nature which has been there all along.

In our pride and seeking of significance and honour in a mis-placed way, we think we are getting somewhere in the world, when that approval quota grows, especially when it grows larger than the next person's.  Why do you think Facebook includes a feature to keep a visually obvious tally of 'followers'?

Is Social Media Accelerating the 'West' into Shame Culture status? - Part 1

I was very interested to read in the Aussie media a few days ago (Friday 27 Feb 2015) a very interesting story of a French couple who did a 'Dine and Dash' - without paying, from a restaurant in Bunbury, Western Australia.  As Channel 9 TV titled their story "Dine-and-dash couple shamed by WA restaurant on social media". The PerthNow paper also used the term 'shamed' in their heading.

Basically the story of the French couple is that after they 'dashed' (by appearing to pop out for a cigarette), the restaurant posted the incident along with a photo from their security camera, on the restaurant Facebook page.  It was shared by thousands and one of those seeing the photo was the farmer who was employing the couple. He fired them and sent them back to the restaurant to pay up. As the WAToday on-line paper said, the couple 'settled the account "with some embarrassment" '.  The restaurant decided not to make it a police matter since they felt the couple had 'paid the price' and Aussies via social media had 'dished out justice', (or as PerthNow also said: 'revenge') resulting in the restaurant actually winning from the event through all the community support!

.............on the other hand, the French Couple, found themselves at the end of another version of 'mob law' - in that where their internal conscience didn't seem to be functioning in a way that prompted or pressured them to pay the bill they should have paid, the external community was the pressure to do what the community felt was 'right'.

In the 'old days' in Africa, the village was a person's world.  They depended on their village for security, protection, identity, success etc etc.  Outside their village they were a nobody and in danger.  So there was a lot of pressure from village members for a person to live according to the village expectations. And if for a moment you thought you might be able to hide anything, the village gossip chain would be busy and before you knew it, there was nowhere to hide.  The fear of being shamed curtailed a lot of bad behaviour.

Well we now live in a 'global village' and Social Media, and in this case Facebook, is the new global 'gossip chain'.  Before you know it, there is no-where to hide!

Interestingly the news clip states that they settled the account 'with some embarrassment'.  They learnt a vital lesson (hopefully) that if you do something wrong, along with guilt there is a price to pay - the price of shame.  And the only way out of that huge shame is to actually subject yourself to (a smaller dose) of further shame.  We could say that 'humility' was the way out of 'humiliation'.  And although in this instance they will probably never feel totally free of any shame over the incident, essentially their willingness to go with humility in the face of subjecting themselves to further shame, and confess/admit their wrongdoing and be willing to pay for what they 'stole', was the road to forgiveness (the restaurant owner decided not to go to the police) and to a 'form' of restored honour - (well at least the onslaught of public shaming ceased!)

Recognising our shame before God for sin is painful and one day Scripture says that all that is done in secret will be revealed - and it will be even worse than Facebook!  The only 'way out' of that ultimate and eternal shame is to be willing to 'confess' our sin - own it, admit it, be willing to be engulfed by it instead of running from it or ignoring it.  Confession is a form of self-shaming, but it is the only route to release from the greater shame on our heads!  The good news of the gospel is that if we are willing to face the shame of confession and with humility repent, God doesn't demand that we pay the bill!

..... Jesus did this and much more for us - he paid the bill with his life and in doing so cancelled our guilt and ended our shame eternally!

Honour; Shame; Identity;...and technology warnings!

I continue to be fascinated by how the facets of honour and shame emerge in our 21st Century Western society.

A report in a recent news bulletin on the lecture of a neuroscientist Susan Greenfield, that warned of the dangers of re-wiring by digital technology of young brains, contained some startling and insightful content....

Here is an excerpt from that news article:

Impressing your social media 'audience'

She said an inspirational teacher or parent could be the key to young people developing the skills "to join up the dots" of the world around them.

Baroness Greenfield said social media had its worthwhile uses, such as for communicating with family or friends across the world, but there was a problem when people had lists of friends "they didn't actually know".

She said such "friends" were actually more of an audience.

"You are out to entertain and seek their approval and the danger lies then in constructing an artificial identity that's not really you at all," she said.

"Everything you do is done for the approval and to impress this audience, who inevitably will be vicious and nasty because they're not constrained by face-to-face communication."

She feared some young people might grow up with short attention spans, keen to conform with their peers and lacking an ability to discern impact of their actions.

"I just wonder whether we might be looking at a generation who are completely self-centred, short attention spans, not very good at communication, rather needy emotionally and with a weak sense of identity?" she said.

"[We need to] look at how we deal with that situation rather than just saying it's all cool, 'we've all got iPads and aren't we trendy?'"

To summarise some of her statements, she is saying that: 

....the current generation of children risk gaining an 'artificial identity' by seeking 'approval' from non-'face-to-face communication' that are more of an 'audience' than really friends.....

  * though she makes very insightful observations, I believe she is actually observing a consequence of a deeper cause - that being what happens when we seek approval primarily from people rather than from God. The problem she sees here is true - but its step 2 of a process where step 1 of neglecting God has already occurred and been ignored.

* when we stop living first and foremost 'Coram Deo' (before God's face), and are only living before the face of people and those people are only through a 'cyber life', we have the problem she describes.

* though God as our Creator desires us to live first and foremost before His face, He also created us for relationship - person to person, face to face.  When we put aside the first commandment to love God with all our heart and soul and mind, we have trouble.  When we go even further and put aside the full context of loving our neighbour and settle for 'cyber life', we are in even more trouble and are denying both ourselves and our neighbours the love of true friendships, and destroying our lives, families and communities in the process.  Even if we say we are Christians and we desire to live for God's approval, we need to be very careful that we are not being taken 'off track' by the world's obsession with technology. It can all too easily become an obsession that destroys part of God's purposes for us as human beings who are meant to be loving one another as God has loved us.  God loved us in such a way as to 'dwell among us', interact face to face with us, touch us and be touched and experience others lives 'warts and all'.

* living this 'virtual world' way removes us from the accountability of personal interaction in addition to the accountability we should have before God.  Society then creates a collection of self-absorbed and self-worshipping individuals rather than any sense of true community.  Without God and without living according to how He created us to live, we as sinful human beings will simply do a very good job of getting ourselves deeper and deeper into the traps set by the Father of Lies, the Devil himself.  

As the excerpt above nuances, this issue is all about honour and shame and identity- whose approval we seek and what we are trying to hide. 

Consider what Jackson Wu said on a recent blogpost:

If we don't think God alone deserves worship, then we will worship some other created thing. Yet, we should be aware that what we worship and our view of ourself are always intertwined. What we worship reflects our value system and worldview.

We become what we worship.

As result, our "face" and our worship are tied together. Eventually, our worship and our seeking of face are indistinguishable. Our "face" belongs to what we worship. We pursue our face more and more. Before long, we start worshipping ourselves.

Our mirror becomes our altar.

When we all pursue "face" (mianzi) in this way, human relationships disintegrate.

Though contrary to popular belief, we can see why biblical monotheism is the only hope we have for harmony in the world.

While technology has its positives, we must not take it as some neutral issue in all its forms and functions - we must be aware that the Father of Lies is also the Angel of light and is out to steal, kill and destroy while making it look like he offers something wonderful, enjoyable and beneficial.  If we don't weigh it against the absolute truth of God and His word, we can so easily get sucked in.  Those who don't know God and think they can ignore His absolute authority and truth, are beginning to see that there is a trail of damage emerging alongside the benefits of technology.  

May we as Christians set the example as ones who reflect a more balanced godly use of technology and not neglect the need for tactile interaction with God's world, and the need for true, deep, face-to-face friendships where the 'love one another' and 'love your neighbour' commands are lived out for the world to see and be blessed by.

May we as Christians be more careful and bold to live 'Coram Deo' and desire to live primarily before the face of God.

May we with grace and sensitivity take the opportunities around us to shine true Light into such conversations, the Light that brings LIFE and true HONOUR in God's eyes!