Information, the Internet, and Education.

I'm sitting here at 2:20 AM, lazing about as I browse the Internet, realizing the seductive - perilous, even - nature of content.

That is to say: we find ourselves in an age where opinions, media, art - entertainment - is available in gross quantities (numerically and repulsively gross) never before imagined. I can easily lose myself in entire afternoons spent, one after the other, non-selectively feeding off the vast streams of information pouring out of the global system. Poring over entire ecosystems of wikipedia entries, examining the output of a single youtube figure, simply perched at twitter.com/#home continuously refreshing the figurative timestream of minutiae.

But what does this mean? I was raised to believe that education meant learning more about what is. As a youth, posted on the couch - legs crossed, neck bent - I perused the Worldbook Encyclopedia, egged on in my erudition by eager parents. I was told that knowing more about my world would render me better-equipped to engage with it.

But that was a different era; a time when information was scarce, valuable. I had entire classroom sessions about the Dewey Decimal System; we were inculcated with the view of library qua gateway to the world, where a handful of rooms - curated and organized by hand - served as world-by-proxy: the sum total of human knowledge and experience gathered, summed up, ordered and described. At such a time, it was quite possible to exhaust one's storehouse of information on any given topic: if I wanted to read about, say, the role of samurai in 19th-century Japan (and I did!), there were n books on said topic available to me. And n was often less than 15.

But were I a young lad in today's bazaar of inputs, I find a humanly inexhaustible resource. Simply googling "samurai" + "19th-century japan" returns over four hundred thousand page hits, from fanboyish (there's another word that didn't exist!) gushings to graduate-level research on primary sources. The new information generated and instantly available, on a daily basis, long outpaces my ability to take it in.

The ramifications of this are, to my mind, vast: acquiring more information is no longer a talent or skillset; anyone with a 5-year-old sidekick and a $50 data plan can do that. In this world of infinite content and global context, information is cheap: what is highly valuable is the skill of adjudicating between streams of content. What is pertinent - what is credible?

And, most importantly: how can this information be repurposed? Were I to simply become a living repository of, say, humanity's knowledge as pertains to a subgenre of early-2000s electronic music, or Civil War reenacting, or a certain type of cross-stitching technique, this is insufficient raison d'etre. Where does this information go? The $64,000 question is - to what end is this knowledge being directed?

Whether we do it through a twitter account, wordpress blog (sorry, blogspot...), youtube channel, indie music distribution, or other mode of expression, the word of the age is productivity. To use a business-centric buzzword: what is the value added to the end consumer by my step in the process? This is why we see old-world names like Virgin Megastores and Fat Beats rapidly disappearing: if animals roam free in the streets, then why go to a zoo? If information is widely and freely accessible in the internet, why go through a middleman?

The metaphor provides its own answer: Because a zoo tiger is a beautiful, serene creature, while a street tiger is a terrifying beast. Zoos provide stable, credible, curated environments for interacting with animals that would otherwise tear one's head off. This explains why blogs have evolved into the tastemakers of our time: whereas before the local snobby record store would provide an auteur's-eye-view of "the scene," now Nah Right, Pitchfork, and that cool girl from school's twitter feed do so.

(1) People need guidance.

but

(2) People don't like paying money.

And so we have replaced the MSRP mark-up of Virgin with the ease of an RSS feed coupled with the cost-free nature of a bittorrent client.

This is not without ramifications. And the most obvious, in my eyes, is that those of us who are "wired-in" (to a certain degree) are rapidly becoming information zombies - shambling through the streets groaning "information.... informationnnnn..."

With such vast quantities of input, and much of it even checking in at a high quality, it is far too easy for us to become consumers only. I could spend evenings, days, weeks even just arming myself with information, paralyzed by the sheer volume, carried away like a hapless duckling in the surge of a fire hose (just go with the metaphor for now), and never even think to begin production. Both for the reason that, with so much content already existing in the wild, my two cents have fallen victim to massive inflation, as well as for the reason of it being simply easier to continue my unabated consumption rather than shift gears into the mode of critical assessment, energetic production, and - and this is key in the modern age of information - self-promotion.

The latter, perhaps, is a fitting coda to this screed: promotion. Marketing. Getting it - whatever it may be - into the right hands.

In the old days (which I am, likely, glorifying), with information comparatively scarce, promotion was as simple as announcing existence to the world. If a niche was filled, if new (or, more likely, new to this audience) information was made available, its debut was as simple as providing access and letting a target demographic know about it. But now, with a surfeit of information, promotion has become far more complex: no matter what type of music, writing, video work, or other content one is creating, there are already people out there who have created something similar. Better. More well-liked. More established.

Promotion now is not just announcing existence; it must convey superiority. If the target audience's desire is already being fed by a media outlet, then advertising must convince that audience that this information, this version of what-I-already-have is better. More like what-I-want than what-I-already-have is.

Hm.

wisdom

"[Martin] Buber admired how the Hasidic communities actualized their religion in daily life and culture. In stark contrast to the busy Zionist organizations, which were always mulling political concerns, the Hasidim were focused on the values which Buber had long advocated for Zionism to adopt."

I think the parallels are evident.

The ease of radicalism.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. - The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 5, Verses 11-12.

What an abused pair of sentences!

I've been growing increasingly uncomfortable with the odd - and oddly common - evangelical delight in the label of "fanatic". I can still remember grade school - 4th grade, was it? - when DC Talk came out with their CCM single Jesus Freak, and every cool Christian kid (alliteration!), it seemed, had the CD playing in their parents' minivan, Walkman, tape deck, etc. While the band, I'm guessing, had a higher purpose for their lyrics - talking about social alienation for the sake of Jesus, a thoroughly Scriptural topic - I experienced the preteen culture immediately around me using the song as the evangelical Smells Like Teen Spirit, essentially co-opting early-90s grunge culture with a Christian twist: using the purported fringe outsiderness of Christianity "under-attack" (via the apparently [?] incisive epithet of "Jesus Freak") as excuse to latch onto the coolness of Seattle circa 1993.

Now, Jesus Freak the song - and this general embrace of evangelical radicalism, at least in one sense of the word - has a point. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not to be muted or watered-down; and it is a theological, historical, sociological fact that truly living a life that imitates and follows the life of Jesus Christ is going to lead to ostracism, persecution, objectification, and more. The way of the Cross is the way of self-sacrifice; of truly considering others as better than oneself and choosing to serve rather than to be served. To follow Jesus Christ is to receive Grace - infinite, unrepayable, impossible Grace - and to respond by giving others that same Grace. To be answer the call of God the Father through the Holy Spirit is to reject the things that used to bring cheap pleasure, and instead to assert the incredible value of life lived in the will of God. This is all immensely counter to the values and loves of this world and our societies; and so it is not wrong to label the Christian life as radical.

But the point grows murky when two subtly distinct - but wholly different - versions of radicalism get pushed together and confused. On the one hand, there is the Way of the Cross: of humble service and sacrifice, desiring that the life of Christ might be shared with others because it is normal. Normal, as defined by Chinese theologian Watchman Nee in his The Normal Christian Life, is the life that should be lived. Yes, this life is radical, but it is not glorious because it is radical; it is glorious because it is right and worthy.

To repeat the point, I mean: being radical is not what makes the Christian life worth living. Being fitting is what makes the Christian life (by which I mean, the life wholly surrendered to God and His love and loving will) worth living - and living to its utmost, most radical, most thorough form.

On the other hand, there is a form of radical Christianity that seems to take radicalism as its goal. In this form of Christianity, the "Christ" is de-emphasized, and the "radical" takes center stage: it seems less important that the one whom we are following is Jesus Christ, and more important that we are following to the extreme, or radically. This impulse towards radicalization seems an inborn trait: and it makes sense, given that we are born to live wholly given over to the will of God.

But we are also born to take great joy in sex, in food, in exercise. And all these can be taken overboard: the sex addict, the glutton, the steroid abuser. They go too far when a part of normal human functioning is mistaken for its end. And similarly, the human drive to radicalization can be taken too far: and the radical surrender that is a proper part of our worship of God becomes the goal of worship. It is enjoyable to be radical; it is easy to be radical.

After all, if we believe we are justified in our radicalization, that means that we never have to listen to anyone who says otherwise! You - I - we have all engaged, at one time or another, with someone who revels in their fanatacism: the aggressive atheist for whom every form of spirituality is a mindless crutch; the socialist who sneers at callous decentralized government; the Linux user who simply will not admit that a Windows computer can be useful. And, I suspect, such arguments (errr... discussions) find their conclusion when you threw up your hands, saying "fine! if all my reasoning and thoughtfully-constructed arguments have absolutely no purchase in your mind - just believe whatever you want to!" And we walk away, shaking our heads, while the other thinks to herself, "well, i just showed him!"

Of course, no such thing is true. But to the self-justified radical of this sort, that doesn't matter! What matters is that his radicalism continues to be self-sustaining, enjoyable, distinguishing him from you or me.

Some of you may have heard of - or even seen - a film called Jesus Camp (if you haven't... don't? Do? It will likely be disturbing.), where a documentary crew goes to various evangelical Christian children's summer camps and films the activities and talks there. Whether through tricks of editing, or the simple truth of the material, it's an absolute image nightmare for the Gospel. Children are given toy swords (representing the Word of God?), lectured on fighting the "culture wars," and the whole thing is generally presented by the (very partisan, I'm sure) filmmakers as a Western equivalent of a Middle Eastern terrorist training camp: indoctrination, self-justification, and radicalization.

Yes, most Christians aren't going to be strapping up with C4 and blowing a hole in the local supermarket. Thank God, middle America isn't the Gaza Strip.

But, lest we forget, men claiming to be acting in the name of Jesus Christ have committed terrorist violence on American soil. And the case isn't helped by, for example, the unfortunate lyric in DC Talk's Jesus Freak that goes "Kamikaze, my death is gain". Yes, DC Talk is probably referencing the point where Paul says: for me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But to have the absolute ignorance to go ahead and connect Paul's words with Japanese suicide bombers from World War II is ludicrous. To die is gain - but we don't go to that death with a self-satisfied smirk on our faces; and the harvest we reap is not the bodies of enemies, but a bounty of grace, peace, and mercy.

This is not the sort of radicalism that Jesus Christ preached, either in the testimony of His words or in His life. The sort of radical God that we follow looked at the people slandering, persecuting, and murdering Him with tears running down His face and salvation in His heart: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Wow!

This is the kind of radicalization that we are supposed to undergo, as Christians: a transformation from the ways of the world to the way of radical love (as [a] Francis Chan and [b] Beyonce would say, Crazy Love). It is a radicalization that can never become self-satisfied, because being pushed to the fringes is not cause for celebration (oh look! I'm so misunderstood!), but grief - grief that the love we have will not be returned by its desired object, those who are pushing us out.

We the Church exist in this world not to condemn it, but to love it. Yes, we will be blessed when people insult, persecute, and slander us - but that blessing is not ours to seize by force of will, but rather to be received in gentleness and thanksgiving from the hand of God. Judgment is neither our privilege nor prerogative; mercy, love, and service are.

Amen?

His children's wounds

The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.
-The Book of Isaiah, chapter 30, verse 26

A couple of days ago, I was catching up with a friend over lunch, who brought up a point upon which he had been recently dwelling: that salvation, for the Christian, is not only, directly, or even primarily deliverance from earthly poverty, injustice, wickedness, and the other evils that immediately assail us when we consider the world around us. Rather, salvation is, at least in major part, a work wherein God removes us from His wrath and delivers us into His favor. We have sinned ourselves into becoming the objects of divine justice; a situation from which we cannot extricate ourselves, but from which God's grace brings us forth.

With this fresh in my consideration, I found it intriguing that Isaiah points out that the wounds of Israel which cried out for healing have been inflicted by God - and were, in turn, divinely healed. It brought to mind Proverbs 27:6: "Faithful are the wounds of a friend." Yes, we can be wounded - even deeply so - by our loved ones. And sometimes such wounds come out of ignorance, or failure on their part: speaking rashly, unthinkingly, in haste or anger.

But often such wounds sting: not because of their intent, but because of our brokenness. A thoughtful bit of feedback clubs our overweening pride, or concern for our actions is taken as an affront to our carefully cultivated self-worth. And so we are hurt; not because our friends have spoken carelessly, in bad faith, but because our rose-tinted reproduction of ourselves is exposed as a poor Photoshop job, juxtaposed with the sharpness of reality.

And it's cause for thanks (mixed with a bit of chagrin) that our God is not a God who is interested in spinning a PR campaign to us; if we ask Him to speak Truth to us, He will show us the Truth.

So, yes: as we become His beloved children, the ones chosen to wrestle with Him, struggle with the truth, and run the long race to the end, we will find ourselves inflicted with divine wounds, wounds that cut through the surface of our lies and penetrate to the ugly (but redeemable!) reality underneath.

And the wonder of grace is that, having inflicted these wounds upon us, God immediately proceeds to turn and bandage them up, healing us at cost to Himself.

Incredible!

Proverbs 20:13

"Do not love sleep or you will grow poor;

"stay awake and you will have food to spare."

a favorite

"For only blood can wipe out blood,
And only tears can heal:

And the crimson stain that was of Cain
Became Christ's snow-white seal."
- Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol

for a dear brother

We have walked and wandered
thru field and forest.
We have waded in pools in Brooklyn.

We have lived and lingered;
given and gotten,
we have glimpsed the face of God.

You are my brother
til breath is bitter
and still we push to the fore.

Run and stand
and sit in silence
and the journey is the reward.