Media Monday: "The Shallows"

Over the last three years, I have read a lot of very interesting books and articles in my quest to get my master's degree. The result is that I have fed my nerdiness. While trying to ease my way back into studying and reading things related to my field so that I can get back on track toward finishing my thesis (and consequently, my degree), I picked up The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr.

It's a book I received for Christmas in 2010, which I started and then put aside with all of my field-related studies when Christopher got hurt and we bought/started renovating our home. I picked it up again over spring break and finished reading it shortly after returning home. I was blown away, and immediately started synthesizing the book's content.

The premise pertains to how the Internet is completely changing how our brains work, particularly with regard to how we remember things and how we engage with life. Carr deftly describes how our cognitive functioning is interacting with the change in how and where we gather our information:

Imagine filling a bathtub with a thimble; that's the challenge involved in transferring information from working memory into long-term memory. By regulating the velocity and intensity of information flow, media exert a strong influence on this process. When we read a book, the information faucet provides a steady drip, which we can control by the pace of our reading. Through our single-minded concentration on the text, we can transfer all or most of the information, thimbleful by thimbleful, into long-term memory and forge the rich associations essential to the creation of schemas. With the Net, we face many information fuacets, all going full blast. Our little thimble overflows as we rush from one faucet to the next. We're able to transfer only a small portion of the information to long-term memory, and what we do transfer is a jumble of drops from different faucets, not a continuous, coherent stream from one source. (pp. 124-125)

Carr details how this change has happened in his own habits - how he writes, reads, works - and contrasts it with historical perspectives and understandings of the brain (something he does really well in The Big Switch, his first book). Breadth of knowledge may be increasing, but there are signs pointing to a decrease in depth of knowledge (hence, Carr's title).

The book is a great read, engaging and thoughtful. It was even a Pulitzer finalist. These are reasons I encourage you to pick it up yourself and give it a read. I will, however, share one of the most fascinating sections from my trip through its pages:

It's not hard to see why books have been slow to make the leap into the digital age. There's not a whole lot of difference between a computer monitor and a television screen, and the sounds coming from speakers hit your ears in pretty much the same way whether they're being transmitted through a computer or a radio. But as a device for reading, the book retains some compelling advantages over the computer. You can take a book to the beach without worrying about sand getting in its works. You can take it to bed without being nervous about it falling to the floor should you nod off. You can spill coffee on it. You can put it down on a table, open to the page you're reading, and when you pick it up a few days later it will still be exactly as you left it. You never have to be concerned about plugging a book into an outlet or having its battery die. (pp. 99-100)

Now, it is certainly no secret that I love books, or even that I love real, printed ones. But a lot of what Carr relates about how the format of the book has changed as it has made its way into interactive platforms is mind-boggling to me. It ceases to be just reading. We lose our ability to simply be lost in whatever it is that we're reading.

Sure, we all know that it can be easy to lose one's train of thought while reading a book, but you realize it when you come to recognize you don't have a clue what is happening on the page and either put it down for a time when you can concentrate or get back on track. With a lot of electronic and interactive book platforms, there are more than our own trains of thought going while we read:

Christine Rosen, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC, recently wrote about her experience using a Kindle to read the Dickens novel Nicholas Nickleby. Her story underscores Johnson's fears: "Although mildly disorienting at first, I quickly adjusted to the Kindle's screen and mastered the scroll and page-turn buttons. Nevertheless, my eyes were restless and jumped around as they do when I try to read for a sustained time on the computer. Distractions abounded. I looked up Dickens on Wikipedia, then jumped straight down the Internet rabbit hole following a link about a Dickens short story, 'Mugby Junction.' Twenty minutes later I still hadn't returned to my reading of Nickleby on the Kindle."

When we step outside of the traditional book platform, we step into a world filled with rabbit trails. They all lead to information of some sort or another, but is it good information? Is it actually leading to a depth of knowledge, a depth of understanding? Do we actually understand the book better?

These are all good questions, and I think Carr has some good thoughts on how our brains are changing with our constant and overflowing influx of information and stimuli. If you want to read it, I recommend a paper copy. Might even let you borrow mine.

Thursday Thoughts: What I Learned at a Dueling Piano Bar in Omaha

As the finale for my brother-in-law's 30th birthday, Christopher and I met up with him and his wife for drinks at a dueling piano bar in Omaha. It would be a new experience for everyone and we just hoped it would be fun.

It was definitely a new experience.

First, it was extremely loud. Set in the back room of a sports bar, the room consisted of a bunch of tables (filled with all sorts of people, including a few bachelorette parties) and some pretty sizable speakers that washed out any ability to hear even the waitress trying to take our order.

Second, it seemed innocuous enough at first. A few well-known songs. Guys playing piano, singing to each other. And then came the first hit of raunch, which we assumed was in passing and would get better as the night progressed.

But, third, we were wrong. It became progressively worse. And, to be honest, it's not the cursing or lewdness that got to me the most: It was the (seemingly) endless attack on marriage.

Marriage is the end of fun, of enjoying your partner. It's all about how one spouse can manipulate the other. Better enjoy the last night or nights you have before it's all over.

Chris and I later talked about how we're surprised anyone actually gets married anymore. There has to be something built into us that knows it is supposed to be meaningful, worthwhile, and beautiful. Most of the world has just seen the bad examples, the "irreconcilable differences," the affairs, the drifting apart after multiple decades together.

The Christian side of things isn't really any better. More than half of those marriages end in divorce, just like the rest. What's missing? Why are we failing at something we so obviously desire but just can't seem to get right?

About a month ago, I had a pretty rattling dream where I was surrounded by a number of believing couples whose marriages I greatly respect who, at the influence of one member of the group, decided that they should all get a "mass" divorce and swap wives. (Most of this is probably due to subconscious fears rooted in experiences at one of the churches my family attended while I was growing up, which is a long, crazy story.)

And, as they began to strip off their wedding rings and celebrate the finalized dissolution of their marriages, I got up on the table and started yelling at them about how foolish they were, about how God would never divorce them - and He had every reason to do so.

Which is BIG for me, you know, because whenever I start yelling in dreams, nothing actually comes out of my mouth. I typically start yelling and realize that no sound is coming out, and become increasingly burdened until I wake either shaking or weeping.

But I was definitely yelling in my dream, and I awoke with the words, "God will never divorce you," rolling over and over in my head. There is so much power in those words that we too often neglect.

You see, Christopher and I are married. We took vows in front of family, friends, and God, and we celebrated in style like so many others do. But we are committed to more than just one another. We're committed to something deeper - that Christ's sacrifice for the Church (His bride) ought to shape us and how we understand marriage. And divorce is not an option.

It's a covenant that's deeper than affection. It's rooted in the very fact that Christ chose us when we did not deserve it, but He did it anyway. We whore after lesser things, thinking they will fulfill us. We have been unfaithful to the Faithful One. Yet, though we fail Him time and again, He upholds His covenant with us that He will never leave us or forsake us.

Marriage can be a beautiful, life-giving thing. The world may see chains, but I see freedom in the fact that God will hold me to my covenant to this man. Freedom from fear. Freedom to believe that, in the same way, God holds Himself to His covenant to me. He will never divorce me. What a beautiful truth upon which to build my life and my marriage.

And, to think, I learned that at a dueling piano bar in Omaha.

Media Monday: Reassessing Facebook

While I am going to start pulling together some thoughts on media to post here (that whole trying-to-start-finishing-my-thesis thing), here's a little something to kick it all off: My latest post over at the Summitview blog, which is an update of my original I'm-leaving-Facebook post from 2010.

You can find the permalink for the blog post here: http://summitview.com/blog/entryid/30/two-years-sober-why-i-left-facebook-and-haven-t-gone-back

Happy reading!

A Night Owl's Growing Convictions on the Importance of Daylight

"I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness." (John 12:46)

I woke up at 2:38 this morning with an incredible headache. And I'm not sure why, but a headache is one of the few things that actually will get me out of bed in the morning and keep me there. Perhaps that is why God allows me headaches in the night. Perhaps not.

Regardless, I took something and went back to bed, and slept for approximately three more hours. Considering that I only slept for a total of about five hours (and most of that was intermittent), it's quite an amazing thing that I'm not still in bed at the moment. I don't often function on five hours of sleep.

After letting the dogs out and putting the kettle on to boil water, I settled in with my Bible and the study I'm using as an opening devotional (since I completed it a few years ago and want to review some of the incredible truths that lie within - "Knowing God by Name" by Mary Kassian). I read my day's worth from the One Year (I'm in Leviticus and Mark, I think). Leviticus normally excites me, which I'm well aware of as being strange, but it just wasn't hitting me in the heart this morning as I emerged from my headache-induced fog.

As I sat there, I pondered over something that I prayed while Chris and I walked through our neighborhood the other night - that I hadn't thanked God for the season that He has just walked us through - and the following verse popped into my head (thank you, nearly 10 years of summer Bible camp):

"In everything, give thanks."

Which of course led me to the question, "Where the heck is that passage?" and "What around it might give me a better understanding of what that means?"

Amazingly, I still remember that reference pretty well (not a normal occurrence - the references are always the difficult part for me). I flipped open to 1 Thessalonians 5 and spent the next few hours steeped in the wonderment of trying to figure out verses 4-24, and what they mean to me.

But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

There are more than a few things that I took away from this passage as convictions for my own life, but I'll only highlight a few (to avoid an even longer post, but perhaps I'll share more at another time).

The first is simply this: I need to belong to the daylight.

I have long been a 'night owl' and have attempted to justify my life in that respect. It is easy for me to stay up all night as long as I make it past midnight, but I rarely do anything that is worth doing so late. Now don't get me wrong - I understand fully that the meaning implied here is more metaphorical than literal - but I think (at least in my case) there's an actual reason for the metaphor that can be applied to the way I think about life.

It hit me this morning that there is a stillness in the early morning, just as there is in the middle of the night - but it is more glorious. The stillness of the night is magnified because I can see clearly what lies around me, and I am less apt to dwell upon myself and more apt to see myself in the light of who God is and what He has made me to be.

Additionally, I came to the realization that people live in the daylight. If my aim in life is to cultivate relationship with those around me in the hope that we each might each be justified and sanctified by the blood spent on the cross on our behalf, I can't expect that to happen when most people aren't awake or available! It is difficult to "admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, [or] be patient with them all," if I am not part of the daylight when opportunities to do so are most likely to present themselves.

How easily I have catered to my flesh, attempting to rationalize my need to sleep for (up to) half of the day because I didn't get to bed until late after having done little (if nothing) of sufficient worth for which to remain awake!

Part of why I think I struggle to "hold fast to what is good [and] abstain from every form of evil," is that I cannot see through the darkness. This can be metaphorical for me, as I have periodically battled with depression, but I think it can still be literal, as well.

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. (John 3:19)

The society in which we live glorifies the darkness. When reading the verse quoted in the last paragraph, I found myself wanting to know where the loopholes were for "every form of evil." It is easy to think that my life must contain evil things because the culture in which we live is evil. But we deceive ourselves if we think we cannot abstain.

Darkness is striving into the daylight, and what was once hidden in shame is now socially acceptable to be seen and known. Let us not be deceived, for God will not be mocked - we will reap the destruction of sowing to our flesh (Galatians 6: 7-8).

The beauty of it all is this:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:5)

In truth, the darkness cannot overcome it. What a marvelous thing! The glory of the risen Christ will always drown out the darkness. He is greater.

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9) 

On Understanding the Spirit's Grief

There is no possible reason that I should still be awake. I'm here, in the middle of Montana (Belgrade, to be exact, which is just outside of Bozeman), in the middle of the night, when we will be getting up and packing up in about six hours, and I'm wide awake.

Maybe it's the five episodes of Scrubs... maybe not.

So I'm listening to my dear husband snore as he sleeps soundly after a day of skiing and tension, and I can't even begin to describe how blessed I am to be here, as difficult as it at times.

It's my first "time off" since we got married. Granted, that may not mean a lot to most people. Many people have nights and weekends to kick back and relax and process.

I feel like I haven't processed in months.

Every time I "get" to sit down, there is something else to think about, something else that grabs my attention or fuels my worries. The thank you notes from our wedding are still not done and, due to our packing mess, have gone MIA. We're moving the day after we get back from this trip to Montana (a day that I still have to work). We're never home on the weekends. I have band practice. I desire to meet more with the women on our team, but fail to have the time to show them how much they are loved.

Plus, there's the whole "being married" thing, which takes work and time - and is perhaps God's biggest blessing for my human existence outside of His grace covering my sin and His giving me life in the first place.

There is never enough time. I feel like a horrid wife, daughter, sister, friend, employee. I hate short conversations on the phone that really should last hours but end up being awkward because there are only a few minutes to spare, so I avoid them whenever possible. The people I love deserve so much more than that.

But instead, they get nothing.

I don't exercise. We rarely eat at home anymore. I haven't played guitar or piano (excluding band stuff) for months.

I am finally processing what God has been teaching me through this whole semester: the Spirit grieves.

Perhaps this seems most random to you - it would seem so to me if it came from any other source. But in the midst of learning that there is truth and there are lies, something has changed deep within me.

In the midst of my unfaithfulness in everyday life, God is still gracious, but the Spirit is grieved. I fail to image forth Christ in this. Even the very purpose for which I was created I cannot do as I ought.

But I am so very grateful that there is a God who is, who always has been, and who always will be completely and fully sovereign.

I am so very grateful that I do not have free will. I am overjoyed that I am under authority, that I am under a standard, that I am not my own - for all that I am has been crucified with Christ, that I might live anew in Him!

We saw "The Golden Compass" today. On movie criteria alone, it wasn't really good. It was a little convoluted and I had difficulty understanding how one scene went to the next (it went so fast!), and some things were never really made clear.

I wouldn't recommend it, and our children will never see it. If someone gives us a copy, I will burn it. Seriously.

But that isn't really the point. And I'm going to try to not rant as much as I really want to.

The point is that, as the Truth Project points out, we are in the midst of a battle of worldviews, and what the world tells us will be diametrically opposed to what Christ tells us.

The film, sadly, is not rooted in truth, but rather in what the world tells us. It begins on the premise that before anything known ever existed, there was "dust" - which also causes chaos and instability in people as they grow.

In the dimension of our world that we are shown in the story, people walk around with their souls, named "daemons" outside of their bodies. One of the main plots is that the institutional Majesterium is trying to find a way to separate people from their souls. And a battle of free will versus sovereignty begins.

There are several things that added up for me as I sat and viewed this "fantastical masterpiece": One underlying message is that "from dust we came" and "to dust we return." Another is that there is no sovereign being who should be able to control us - we should let our wild "daemons" run free in defiance of the institution. And yet a third is that we cannot know truth in and of ourselves - we need an outside force to tell us what is "true."

And the Spirit inside of me grieved.

We are made in the image of God. We are not dust, and men do not merely become dust when they die. They face judgement. Real judgement with a real authority who set a holy standard that we have failed to keep because we fell.

God is not responsible for our sin. And we deserve nothing. Absolutely nothing. He is not a tyrant who chooses some to go to hell and others to join Him in heaven. His desire is that none would perish - not a single one.

We violated His standard and yet, out of love, He has let us live and has provided a way of reconciliation to Him by the cross borne by Jesus Christ. This isn't a monarchy where peasants pay tribute in exchange for just treatment - we have nothing to even offer, and yet He has given us everything in Jesus Christ. Everything!

Without God, there exists no purpose - there is no reason for living! If it is dust that we come from, then we truly have no free will. All we are doing is simply the bidding of the universe - we are just part of a clockwork. (I'd explain this more, but it is one o'clock in the morning, after all). Why do we run from the thought that there is a sovereign Lord who keeps watch over us? Why do we fear not having our "independence"?

I am so grateful that I do not need to worry over myself. And there is no such thing as "free will" as we think we understand it. I don't think any of us would really like it that much if we really saw what that looked like.

For in possessing "freedom of the will" we suspect we will know true "freedom". I have known what it is like to live by "my own rules" and it's awful. I have known what it is to live by legalism and it's awful.

And I know what it is to live under grace, to live in responsibility over my own sin and understand the mercy that covers me in any good thing that comes forth from my being - and it is only there, in God's hands, that I have known true "liberty."

How sad it is that the third thing I realized is actually true, though strangely warped in this particular film.

We cannot know truth in and of ourselves. But neither can the "dust" be an honest agent of truth.

But the Spirit of Truth dwells in us. He testifies to the truth. When the truth is not spoken, He grieves.

Which is why I am not offended by the movie. Surprising, no?

But that's where the semester-long lesson comes in. I am not offended for the cross of Christ, but I am grieved at its slander.

Several times in the last few months, I have been afraid of sharing truth with women on my team and with others. Choosing to speak truth instead of trying to brush over things with "easy" answers has been a long and painful process that has resulted in many tears, but never offense. After the first few encounters, I began asking why I was not personally offended when fellow believers would get angry at me or rail on for an hour about their opinion on something or about how they were being treated.

And the answer came simply: it was not me that was offending. It was truth.

I can always stand on truth. Always.

It makes me bolder, something I have struggled with for years, and I can barely explain it except that there is a God, He is fully sovereign, and He came that the "truth might set us free."

How many times I have seen chains lifted this semester! How many times I have sung praise to God for what He is doing in so many lives by exposing them to truth!

We buy so many lies as a culture, myself included. It is easy to "just try to fit in" and go with the flow.

But we are called to so much more than that! We are called to stand firm on the truth and fight for it - not for ourselves or because God "needs" our help (never!), but because we are bearing the image of God and for that reason, we must reflect His truthful nature.

I am not ashamed to serve a sovereign God. He is good, and I would have it no other way.

There were certainly more thoughts about the film that I won't share. I've ranted enough for one evening (or morning).

If I haven't spoken to you recently, know that I love you and wish you a "Merry Christmas!" with the greatest enthusiasm. Perhaps I'll write more about the politics of Christmas (especially in Fort Collins) some other time. Until then, think on the depths of what it means that we celebrate Christmas-

God has given us a Savior! Oh, let us praise the Lord of Hosts! He is ever faithful and good.

I do suppose the time has come for me to now go to bed. And, so, I bid you 'Good night!'