More Talk, Less Write

“I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee: But I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face. Peace be to thee. Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name.” (3Jo 1:13-14 AV)

John closes both Second and Third John this way.  He seems to make it a point to shorten what he could write because he intends to come for a visit to more perfectly expound to people dear to him some spiritual benefit.  I couldn’t help but see an obvious application to our tech saturated world in which we move and have our being.

 Text messaging, instant messaging, personal messaging, and social media has made us a less sociable people.  Just because we communicate electronically does not mean we are communicating effectively.  There are things that fail in the world of electronic relationships.  One cannot see the love behind the eyes of the one who cares.  We have a hard time reading emotion into words even if adjectives and adverbs are profusely used.  Inflection of voice is something that cannot be shared electronically.  Merely sitting with someone going through a hard time communicates more than a trove of text messaging.  A smiley face emoji, a gif appropriate to the occasion, or even a lol or haha simply does not accomplish the same thing as if it were done in person.  We use the excuse that we are too busy.  Personally, I love texting.  A person can accomplish all that he needs to do efficiently and quickly without all the lighter chit chat that usually accompanies such and endeavor.  What I have found is we are a generation that knows how to talk at each other all the while we have lost the ability to talk with one another. 

 When I was a child, my favorite place to be when all the extended family got together was in the living room with all the adults as they shared life experiences.  I heard all the stories of how it was when they grew up.  Sure, occasionally one would hear an uncle pontificate on come current social issue or political debate, but that was the acceptation and not the rule.  For the most part, my parents and their siblings sat and spoke of the years gone by.  They fondly remembered things.  There was a lot of lol, smiley faces, and hahas.  But they were in person with much joy that simple cannot be expressed in electronic format no matter how many emojis or acronyms we use.  We are losing the human connection.  No wonder our society is in such a mess.  We do not see people as they are.  We see one another as an avatar that can be closed out.  A simple click of the mouse or selection of the fingertip puts and end to an intrusion which we now feel is inconvenient.  Maybe we should take a que from John here and visit more while writing less.  Perhaps we can make deeper connections that a pixel filled screen will allow.  Instead of a bunch of dots on a screen, we will see one another as a living, breathing, human soul that has real value and real needs.  Time to connect as only humans can.  Our beloved brother John knew this almost two thousand years ago.