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On Bubble Cars and Recalibrating Reality

My attachment and interaction with a handheld device shapes my own little ‘bubble car’, insulating, and isolating me. Like a sci-fi, high-tech device, it pops out and over me, this plastic bubble on wheels.

(When Pokémon Go launched a whole population outside – it was a veritable traffic jam of bubble car drivers.)

This little vehicle takes me places, but not necessarily places I want to go.

For example, anger. Moral outrage can be like a hyper-energy drink; it has great potential to stir me into actual action. But within the confines of my tech-induced bubble, it spirals out of control into road rage, twisting my understanding, where folks in ‘the other camp’ are the mortal enemy.

Another example is disconnection. George Monbiot has an epic-level warning about this in his article ‘Screened Out’ (Guardian, 1st March 2017):

“For some of those immersed in virtual worlds, everything loses its meaning – even racism and fascism.
Everything is possible. Nothing is possible. Nothing hurts any more, until the consequences crash through the screen. Immersed almost permanently in virtual worlds, we cannot check what we are told against tangible reality. Is it any wonder that we live in a post-truth era, when we are bereft of experience?
It is no longer rare to meet adults who have never swum except in a swimming pool, never slept except in a building, never run a mile or climbed a mountain, have never been stung by a bee or a wasp, broken a bone or needed stitches. Without a visceral knowledge of what it is to be hurt and healed, exhausted and resolute, freezing and ecstatic, we lose our reference points. We are separated from the world by a layer of glass. Climate change, distant wars, the erosion of democracy, the resurgence of fascism – in our temperature-controlled enclosures, all can be reduced to abstractions…
Once people retreat into the land behind the headset, in which they can no longer even see or hear what surrounds them, they are likely to become still less connected with the real world…
In a fiendishly complex world, the only hope we have of assessing competing claims is often to draw on our own experience. Without experience, we are lost…
This is about what it is to be human, what it is to lose that essential element of our existence: our contact with the real world. The political, social and environmental consequences are currently beyond reckoning.”

Lord, help us reconnect!

And it starts with the simplest of things…
When we put down our devices, there’s a refocusing that takes place. Like putting on reading glasses, the letters jump back into focus. It’s also a recalibrating, re-kaleidescoping phenomenon. First our senses – sight and hearing literally re-focus. But it also involves our minds and the awareness of everything around us.
We’re opening up the hatch of our bubble cars and stepping out into the fresh air.

As the Proverbial Policeman would say:

“Sir, Ma’am, drop what you’re holding, step away from the car, exhale in this bag, and show me you can still walk in a straight line.”

 

Blessings sometimes pop out from surprising corners in our lives, don’t they. Even social media apps might occasionally sound like the voice of God!

A recent case in point from the ‘Your memories on Facebook’ thingy… You know the one?
“… [your name]…, we care about you and the memories that you share here. We thought that you’d like to look back on this post from …. years ago.”

This particular memory was from 2011. And it’s one of those truths that get only truer with time:

“And the work of God is rarely dull, but it’s not always necessarily what we think. Transformation is hard stuff. Seeking to bring about the kingdom of God — caring for the poor, feeding the hungry, visiting prisoners, caring for the sick, renouncing demons in God’s name — you don’t do that in a 15-minute lunch break.”
– Enuma Okoro

Six years later, I’m only more convinced that our journeys of both personal transformation and social transformation are:

unexpectedly
longer,
more darned difficult
and more incredibly exciting,
leading us to places never anticipated.

‘The Filipino is worth dying for’(*)

NOTHING is worth killing him for

A perverse twist to a noble ideal is upon us. And who bats an eyelid? Does anyone care which side of history we will find ourselves on – with retrospect, even five years from now?

Meanwhile a number of determined journalists persist in trying to hold society accountable, knowing that most don’t want to know. Knowing that one day…

In a New York Times article entitled ‘Death on the Night Shift in Duterte’s Manila’ (Feb 22, 2017) Miguel Syjuco writes:

“‘It’s the new normal,’ a photojournalist told me. ‘It’s easier and cheaper to kill them. We can only document it, for a time when Filipinos have regained their sanity.'”

***

(*)“I have asked myself many times: Is the Filipino worth suffering, or even dying, for? Is he not a coward who would readily yield to any colonizer, be he foreign or homegrown? Is a Filipino more comfortable under an authoritarian leader because he does not want to be burdened with the freedom of choice? Is he unprepared, or worse, ill-suited for presidential or parliamentary democracy?

I have carefully weighed the virtues and the faults of the Filipino and I have come to the conclusion that he is worth dying for because he is the nation’s greatest untapped resource.”

Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. on August 4, 1980 in New York City, USA.

Fatherless
7,000 and still counting

Little Ricky’s dad was sick
he died last night
though his death and sickness
were connected
(those all too familiar signs)
it was not his sickness
that killed him
not his madness
that sent 5 masked men
to shoot him

screenshot: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/794598/kill-list-drugs-duterte

The idea of ‘learning to master my devices before they master me’ is not a new one. But in these days of news and opinion overload, how much more do I need to know how to silence my machinery…

I love this:

“When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions.”

– The Message; Matthew 5:1,2

What Jesus is about to share with his climbing companions will change their lives forever…

But what really grabs my attention here is how Jesus, and those who want to listen to him, go off in the opposite direction from the huge crowds. They climb a hillside and find a quiet place.
No huge crowds.

What’s my equivalent of climbing a hillside, of finding a quiet place?

It’s very simple. It’s very close by. And a bit (!) radical.

That quiet hillside happens when I put down the cell phone, or the tablet, when I close the laptop, turn off the TV, and leave the “huge crowds” behind.

And if the silence needs to be broken, let it be talking with others, talking with myself, talking with God. Community. Reflection. Prayer. These will keep me sane.

Confessional moment: I’m using “I”, “me” and “my” with good reason, as I’m one of the world’s worst at this. The irony here is that I’m fortunate enough to live literally on a green hillside (*), yet frequently find myself trapped behind a device; I don’t see the trees for the text.

… How about we go off and enjoy a hillside break – right NOW!

(*) Hence the sunset photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/annvanwijgerden/

Do you find that, in our lives on the virtual frontier, we regularly need to press the pause button? If we don’t stop and reflect, I wonder, will that doomsday scenario of the many sci-fi adventures we (I !) grew up reading, eventually come to pass? You remember those stories of computers taking over the world?

There’s a certain inevitability in life: “if you don’t set the priorities, they’ll be set for you, and they won’t be good ones”. This ‘law’ seems to apply not only to, for example, parenting and personal goals, but also to our technology. Either we learn to master it, or it will master us. And I, for one, refuse to give up the option of pressing that pause button…

This reminds me of an astonishingly prophetic Newsweek article written by David Brooks over fifteen years ago. Way back in 2001 to be precise. It was called ‘Time to Do Everything Except Think’. We were then living in the Netherlands, and for about a year, I used this article while giving English lessons to Dutch business folk, (admittedly, the more advanced students), as a comprehension exercise and discussion starter. I saw it not only as a brilliant, imaginative piece of writing, but also as a great ‘conversation provoker’. It presented such a weird view of the future; that we’d be our own worst enemies in not even allowing ourselves enough time to think. Then I misplaced the article and completely forgot about it. About five or six years later it turned up while I was going through old lesson material. And that’s when the astonishment hit. What Mr Brooks had written about was not some kind of paranoid, science-fiction joke. Far from it. Far, far from it. It was prophetic, it was true, it was already happening. In fact, if anything, he had underestimated the scope of the thing: it wasn’t to be just the business people entrapped by their devices. It would be… everyone.

Anyway, before I give everything away, have a read for yourselves… And tell me that this isn’t a warning – dressed in delightful humor, by the way; a warning that only grows more relevant by the day:

(Not the complete article.)
“Time to Do Everything Except Think; 
Multitasking, checking your e-mail, operating at peak RPMs: you’ve become addicted to wireless life – and it has a cost. By David Brooks (NEWSWEEK, 30 April 2001)

Somewhere up in the canopy of society, way above where normal folks live, there will soon be people who live in a state of perfect wirelessness. They’ll have mobile phones that download the Internet, check scores and trade stocks. They’ll have Palm handhelds that play music, transfer photos and get Global Positioning System readouts. They’ll have laptops on which they watch movies, listen to baseball games and check inventory back at the plant. In other words, every gadget they own will perform all the functions of all the other gadgets they own, and they will be able to do it all anywhere, any time….

Never being out of touch means never being able to get away. But Wireless Man’s problem will be worse than that. His brain will have adapted to the tempo of wireless life. Every 15 seconds there is some new thing to respond to. Soon he has this little rhythm machine in his brain. He does everything fast. He answers e-mails fast and sloppily. He’s bought the fastest machines, and now the idea of waiting for something to download is a personal insult. His brain is operating at peak RPMs.

(While on holiday:…) He sits amid nature’s grandeur and says, “It’s beautiful. But it’s not moving. I wonder if I got any new voice mails.” He’s addicted to the perpetual flux of the information networks. He craves his next data fix. He’s a speed freak, an info junkie. He wants to slow down, but can’t.

Today’s business people live in an overcommunicated world. There are too many Web sites, too many reports, too many bits of information bidding for their attention. The successful ones are forced to become deft machete wielders in this jungle of communication. They ruthlessly cut away at all the extraneous data that are encroaching upon them. They speed through their tasks so they can cover as much ground as possible, answering dozens of e-mails at a sitting and scrolling past dozens more. After all, the main scarcity in their life is not money; it’s time. They guard every precious second, the way a desert wanderer guards his water.

The problem with all this speed, and the frantic energy that is spent using time efficiently, is that it undermines creativity. After all, creativity is usually something that happens while you’re doing something else: when you’re in the shower your brain has time to noodle about and create odd connections that lead to new ideas. But if your brain is always multitasking, or responding to techno-prompts, there is no time or energy for undirected mental play. Furthermore, if you are consumed by the same information loop circulating around everyone else, you don’t have anything to stimulate you into thinking differently. You don’t have time to read the history book or the science book that may actually prompt you to see your own business in a new light. You don’t have access to unexpected knowledge. You’re just swept along in the same narrow current as everyone else, which is swift but not deep.

So here’s how I’m going to get rich. I’m going to design a placebo machine. It’ll be a little gadget with voice recognition and everything. Wireless People will be able to log on and it will tell them they have no messages. After a while, they’ll get used to having no messages. They’ll be able to experience life instead of information. They’ll be able to reflect instead of react. My machine won’t even require batteries.”

 There is fiction, in the sense of story, which has a high calling, a divine role in our lives: taking us by the hand it leads us into the depths of the facts.

And God knows we love a good story. Apparently, so does He, especially when it helps open our hearts and minds to reality.

“That’s why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight.”

– The Message; Matthew 13:13

What an invitation…:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

– The Message; Matthew 11: 28-30

By way of an introduction: ‘A holy human heartache’
First appeared as ‘Doing justice: surprised by joy’ a guest post on Ed Cyzewski’s blog in 2013, updated February 2017

There are two of them: two of the most gorgeous, grimiest creatures on this planet. Their faces and tangled black hair heavily laced with sweat and charcoal dust. Big friendly eyes, big shy smiles, tattered over-sized T-shirts, these two little girls have been watching us curiously, giggling, patiently waiting for more contact.

Sitting down on a relatively clean looking slab of concrete – emphasis here on “relatively” as our scene is a dumpsite in Manila – I just know that this moment with these two lovelies must not be missed.

As soon as I’m down, there are two five-year-olds in my arms. A precious big hug minute together: I feel their scrawny bodies, I feel that slight gargling in their lungs from the smoke of the charcoal burning.
Something is grabbing my guts, wrenching my heart. I am a mother after all… For all the years we have embraced little ones like these, the excruciating joy and sorrow, heartache and bliss catch me by surprise.

Twenty-nine years ago my husband Paul and I first came to the Philippines for a Primary Health Care course in Manila. The training school was a short walk away from an enormous garbage dump, and the people who lived there were the ones we practiced our newfound learning on. Of course the inevitable happened: we fell in love with these folks and were not about to go anywhere else!

Before it was closed down in 1995, Smokey Mountain was the name of this gigantic mound of refuse, where the city’s poor scavenged through the city’s waste. Here they literally scraped together a meager living by collecting, washing, sorting and selling recyclable items.

Paul has a favorite story of a confrontation-life-changing moment in our early years here. While walking over the mountain of garbage, he met a little boy who stretched up his arms to him, wanting to be picked up and held. For the first time Paul faced that moment of decision: how to respond to a dirty-beyond-belief child? Then came that moment of revelation: the utter insignificance of a pristine white T-shirt.

Oh-so-many priceless hugs later, on Smokey Mountain II – the garbage dump a mile or so away from the original – I’m saying goodbye to these two grubby little angels, as they run off to play. Feeling subdued by the unexpected impact of our affection, their affection, I catch up with my colleagues, wondering if I’m going soft in the head, but glad to still be going soft in the heart.

Back in the 1990s, after a couple of years of involvement with health care, Paul and I then focused our attention on school sponsorship, seeing education as the long term solution which could give children the opportunity to break out of that vicious cycle of poverty.

We had been in Manila for about five years when sickness totally swiped the rug from under our feet. There was no choice but to return to the Netherlands. We were young then (!) and three months seemed to us like a reasonable time to recover and return to the Philippines. However, it was to be nine years before we set foot in the Philippines again, and another five years after that before we returned to live here. For many – no, for most – of those years in the Netherlands, we assumed that our chapter ‘The Philippines’ was closed. We couldn’t have been more wrong…

‘The Philippines, part II’ began nine years ago, when we moved back to Manila to continue with a school sponsorship organization called Young Focus (*).

No one is more amazed than Paul and I by what has been happening here on behalf of the youth. We are acutely aware of being part of something that is bigger than we are.
Our history, in terms of ‘doing justice’, was that we simply started off ‘wanting to help the poor’, having an inkling that God was in fact on their side. Our suspicions have been utterly confirmed. Over the last nine years in particular, we feel like we have had the privilege of being put on the front row, watching how God moves heaven and earth on behalf of those whose daily existence is a struggle for survival.

Again: we know that this is something so much bigger than we are. The years of sickness in the Netherlands had some brutal lessons for us in terms of our fragility, frailty and feebleness. We are under few illusions about our own ‘do-gooding-ness’.

And even as I write these words, I’m beginning to understand why those two little girls had such a deep impact on me. It wasn’t only the protective maternal juices churning. It wasn’t just the hope and longing that we’ll be able to empower them for a better future. It was also – very simply – our common frailty. In the presence of our loving, faithful God.

(*) For more about our work see: http://www.youngfocus.org