Technology is an interesting phenomenon, and it’s hard sometimes to keep up. In general, however (and for a man who is admittedly well beyond young-adulthood) I’m fairly well engaged vis-a-vis electronic media.

For sure, I don’t really understand much of the technology I use, but I have learned/am learning how to communicate and I do at least have a presence: in the blogosphere, on facebook, via linked-in, on twitter. I even have my own You-Tube channel.

CONNECTED: I am connected enough that when my iPhone “died” on Tuesday afternoon, I felt a little helpless and lost. I didn’t have it for around six hours. Then, when I did get it back, I had to reprogram everything from the “default” settings. That’s when I discovered, quite by accident, that I’m not obliged to listen to those annoying, grating alert tones – apparently there are choices.

Who knew?

Then, again quite by accident (while searching for all the iTunes purchases that weren’t on my phone anymore), I inadvertently selected “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen as my morning alarm. How cool is that? Now I’ve figured out what I did I can look forward to waking up tomorrow to The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun.”

THE MESSAGE: But as wonderful as technology is, and as useful a tool as electronic media can be to communicate with the world, it all amounts to a worthless waste of time and effort absent a strong, clear message for people once they tune in.

To some extent – to slightly misquote Marshall McLuhan from 1964 – I’ll concede it’s still true that “the medium [has become] the message.” But eventually, I’d argue, this so-called “Communication Age” is in desperate need of a message beyond itself, and I’d argue that someone who can articulate such a message could do so with chalk on a sidewalk or an old-fashioned paperback book and be more compelling than the billions of tweets, posts, blogs, texts, and videos that collectively say nothing at all other than, “Look at me!” and, “Vanity of vanities (says the Teacher) all is vanity.”

Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun?

A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hurries to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south, and goes around to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they continue to flow. All things are wearisome; more than one can express; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, or the ear filled with hearing.

What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes chapter 1)

LIVE AS CHILDREN OF LIGHT: The message, THE message, that I believe completely transcends media/medium, is the simple and uncomplicated invitation – extended by God – to live in the light, to live as children of light, and to live into the promise that we matter completely, both to God and to the world that God placed us in.

If we understand that, and live into it, then this is what we will become, to use the words of C.S. Lewis, who never posted a tweet or a blog in his life: “…We shall find underneath it all a thing we have never yet imagined: a real Man, an ageless god, a son of God, strong, radiant, wise, beautiful, and drenched in joy.” (“Man or rabbit?” from God in the Dock)

Don’t you want to be a [child] of God, strong, radiant, wise, beautiful, and drenched in joy?

– DEREK