I don’t think I was honest with you in the last piece about Nebuchadnezzar’s monument that dominated the skyline. I wanted Hannah to refuse to bow to the king’s image because I wanted to put that refusal to go along into my imagination because my greatest fear is that I’ll quail when I’m asked what would you choose–following Jesus or preserving your life?
You may have thought, wait, what? The three Hebrews who took the fire were probably eunuchs. I know, I know I should have followed what we know of the historical record. But for this imagination there seemed to be a woman’s voice that wanted to speak
I’m afraid I wasn’t talking about a golden statue. I was talking about my phone and the internet it’s connected to, and the web of wires and signals and switches and electricity that power the internet. I’m connecting to something more powerful and alive than the dumb golden image. While it’s just a tool, the phone can capture my eyes, pull them off “Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of God the father.”
Every morning the first thing, I do is pull my phone off the charger and scan it for messages. I might check the weather. The dogs are waiting to go out, Omalola surprisingly quiet after her burst of joy bounding out of her crate. I drink tea, grab rice cakes, slip on their collars and leashes, tie my shoes and pocket my phone. We walk out.
The phone walks with me because I want pictures of how I see stuff. The roadside flowers have been beautiful this year. I am dwarfed by corn, their tops looking like church spires, but I can no longer see down the valley to the silver grain bins or Dale’s red barns. Even though that is my sacred walk to talk to God, to be silent and give thanks, if a friend sends a message, I duck my head to chat, missing how the sky has changed, how my feet sound on a tarred and chipped road. My attention split, I start the day weary.
Even before we walk, I can be sidetracked by the latest national drama. I sit down even before we walk. I open Facebook as I get the dog’s food ready, as I make my breakfast, as I coax Dolly to eat. But do I open the lectionary app to read the scripture readings for the day? Nope. After an hour, I’m ready to give Morgen her hay, pour fresh water, and scratch her back.
I’m connecting to the conversations I find on the other side of the screen. The Ted Kooser poem first thing Sunday morning. The NRPlus group, sponsored by the National Review, has become a safe place to talk politics. We are people to each other, sharing the tough news of losses and good news of moves or remodeling or children graduating. If we are in the same region, we sometimes meet in person. Facebook also satisfies my interest in what’s going on locally with friends and neighbors, and childhood friends and friends of friends who don’t live around here. While it can take my eyes off Jesus, it can also plant my eyes right back on him as well.
Even beyond the screen itself I am grabbed by the craziness of our culture. I am filled with dread, wondering what’s next, when will the monstrous thing will top the horizon. I scan my newsfeed, read journalists on Substack. It’s too easy to set my eyes on the glorious fire, billowing and bright, like former President Trump’s assassination attempt, the Crowdstrike outage, Biden’s increasing frailty while still running the country, his vice president, now the Democrat nominee who got no votes in the 2020 primary. Tulsi Gabbard, being surveilled, as a possible terrorist threat, by teams of Air Marshalls and bomb sniffing dogs. And there’s Act Blue, which is laundering people’s credit cards to cover massive donations to the Democrat party. It’s too easy to drink in unsettled waters.
A Chinese spy balloon flew over the country unchallenged, two Russian and Chinese bombers flew within 200 miles of Alaska. Iran is threatening to attack Israeli and American assets. There are rumors of American gangs fighting Venezuelan gangs in Chicago. It’s too easy to drink in unsettled waters.
I read my phone in the car, missing beautiful views of rolling fields and growing crops, farmhouses and spectacular skies, each scene a sort of love letter from God. I open the phone while eating meals, sometimes chatting on messenger, when savoring the flavors and textures of what I’m eating, giving thanks, would satiate me.
There’s much email that takes time daily to read or cull. And so much excellent content. In the evening, when I have books to read to satisfy my curiosity, I’d rather turn on junk TV and catch up on Substack or email newsletters.
There isn’t a king threatening with a fiery furnace if I don’t look. There isn’t music playing to signal the worship, or snitches if you disobey. No it’s engineering, silent to us, that knows how to hook our eyes so we focus on what the apps think we should watch. It’s the wheels coming off our culture, outrage and fear that drive me to look.
The other night, I dreamed about flirting with Elon Musk. But someone warned that there’d be force involved. I dreamed an image of how I am in love with the machine, looking at that golden statue, bowing down to it and not even being threatened or signaled by music unless I turn on itunes.
God is very much our lover. Scripture along with ground and trees and skies and Bruce and the Eucharist and my friends are his love letters to us and we just need to open the pages, we just need to listen, we just need to behold. The prophet Jeremiah quotes God, “for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jer. 2:13, ESV) I feel helpless to change the habit of reading Facebook first thing. And know I sleep better if I park the phone in the evening. There are newsletter subscriptions and Substacks, with wisdom I will miss.
(One of the reasons I only post once a week is because I get it, the overwhelm of content. And I so appreciate your taking the time to read my essays.)
In Ezekiel, God speaks, “They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and detestable things or with any of their transgressions. But I will save them from their backslidings in which they have sinned and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people and I will be their God” (Ezekiel 37: 23, ESV). There is promise here, that the Lord will save me from my backsliding. That with Him I can turn my eyes away from outrage and mostly from the fear of what’s coming. I hear him say, “Don’t be afraid.” If it weren’t for my failing, I wouldn’t need Jesus. I can ask him to help me bring a healing presence to all my conversations, even those on Facebook and to choose whatever scripture he shows me first thing. (Becoming a Healing Presence by Albert Rossi is a marvelous quide for bringing this presence to your life.)
Today when I was walking the dogs I looked down the field past the round bales, over to the neighbors’ homes and listened and for a minute the machines were silent. All I heard were the birds and insects. Then the machines started. Off to the northeast new owners are tearing down grain bins. To the east someone is crop-dusting. Often Amazon Prime and UPS jets fly over. But for this minute all was silent.
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