Eclipse or Bust!

“So, then I went outside,” I said, my voice raising slightly.  “Do you know what I found?”

“No,” the other man said to me.  “What?”

“It was dark!  Really dark,” I said with finality – one would almost say with totality.

“Did this happen during the last eclipse?”  The other man was trying to figure out what the point of this story was.

“No, this was last night about 10 pm,” I said.  “I was just practicing up my darkness skills for the eclipse.”

The other man just rolled his eyes.  Clearly, I wasn’t taking this whole eclipse thing seriously enough.

Maybe it is just that I must work on Monday, but I don’t see viewing an eclipse in totality as a huge deal.  Every night, the sun goes on the other side of the earth, and it gets dark – really dark.  It is almost as though the people in Australia are creating an eclipse for those of us who live in Virginia.

Even more than that, if you like the dark, putting a paper bag over you head works really well and is much less costly than spending the money for gas to drive to somewhere in Ohio or Indiana where you can see the moon cross in front of the sun for 15 minutes.

I suppose the big thing that makes an eclipse stand out as something wonderful is its infrequent nature.  The last big solar eclipse in the eastern United States was in 2017.

Of course, just because something is unusual doesn’t make it worth seeing.  I do not remember my younger son eating tomatoes without complaining.  We still have not had television crews show up at our house on the off chance that our next supper meal will have this once in a lifetime occurrence.

I suppose that many of the people pursuing totality of eclipse will find what they seek – a deep twilight for fifteen minutes, the temperature will get a little cooler over that time, and then they will fight dense traffic for several hours.  I’m sure it will be memorable and special.

I am still afraid that we pursue the unusual and miss the beauty that is around us every day.  Ecclesiastes says, “He hath made everything beautiful in His time…” 

For all my grumbling about the eclipse, I might go to see it if I had a chance, but I would not give up my vision to see the beauty around me.  I sincerely believe that that beauty is easier to see on days when the moon doesn’t block the sun’s light.

Lincoln or Douglas?

 

 

The year was 1858 and the topic at hand was slavery – specifically the question of whether new states entering the United States would allow it or not. 

The topic was hotly debated in a variety of forums, but one of the most interesting of these was a series of seven debates between two of the men who would vie for the 1860 presidency.  Stephen Douglas was the candidate of the Democratic party, while Abraham Lincoln would eventually be the candidate of the newly formed Republican party.  

Stephen Douglas was of the mind that the status quo should continue, leaving the problem for another generation.  On the other hand, Lincoln, while in favor of abolition, wasn’t exactly progressive by today’s standards.  He didn’t think African Americans and whites should marry and thought the best option was to send former slaves back to Africa.

What is interesting to me is that these series of debates took three hours each.  The initial speaker was given 60 minutes to share his perspective on the subject.  This was followed by the second speaker, who was given 90 minutes to share his perspective and rebut what the first speaker said, and finally, 30 minutes was given to the first speaker to come back and clarify points further. 

Thousands of people turned out to listen to these.  I suppose attention spans were different back then, the latest iPhone hadn’t quite made it to the western frontier, and Wi-Fi was extremely slow in most parts of rural Illinois in the late 1850s.  People simply had less to do and so were willing to listen to long form debate.

It saddens me, because much of debate these days takes the form of one side setting up straw men that they can knock down, while the other side shouts soundbites.  This seems to have climaxed with the onset of memes on social media.

A meme is typically a pithy quote or pointed statement about a particular subject, posted over a silly picture (often gleaned from some movie or TV show).  They are often humorous (at least to one side of a debate).  They may take aim at conservatives or liberals, atheists or Christians, home schoolers or college graduates.  The problem is that, because of its brevity, a meme tells absolutely nothing about the subject and only reveals a bit of the heart of the person posting the meme.

It is no wonder that blogs have died and that they have been replaced by a mixture of video, memes, and click bait articles that share weird trivial facts about things you don't really care about.  Long form essays are a thing of the past.

I suppose the thing that saddens me most is the lack of ability to listen.  A conversation (even on Facebook) is not a war.  One of my favorite verses is in James 1 and says, "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath."  (James 1:19) We should listen to understand, not simply to identify weak areas in our opponent's armor that we can target with heat seeking missiles.  

I suppose I am just getting old, but I wish that we lived in a time when intelligent people could go out and sit quietly and listen to intelligent speakers share well thought out, if differing views on a subject.  The problem of today is not that we have too few opinions, or that we can't find sound bites and memes to support those opinions.  Rather, people have lost any desire to listen and understand the perspective of others around them who hold different views.

When Solomon had a dream in which God offered to give him anything he desired, Solomon asked for an "understanding heart."  I wonder how many of us would ask for the same and how many would rather ask for the ability to sway people to our opinion.

If we could only listen more and share just a little less, maybe, just maybe our society would be less polarized.  Even more than that, if this were to happen, it is possible that people who do not understand the love of God would see that love manifested in the lives of the people who claim to serve Him.

Dressing Up

 

“What are you doing?”  I asked my beautiful wife.  She was seated at the computer and a couple of our children were standing nearby.

“The children are having a dress up day at school,” Elaine told me.  “We are trying to figure out what they will dress up as.  I think Victoria will go as Madeline.”

“Fun,” I said.  “Maybe Vincent can go as Julius Caesar.  We are coming up on the Ides of March, you know.”

No one seemed to think my idea was all that great.  “I think Vincent should go as Dark Vader!”  Elise told me seriously.

“Dark Vader?”  I asked.  “I think I know his brother Darth.  I’m guessing he was twins?”

“No, Dad, DARK Vader!”  Elise told me firmly.  “He dresses in black because his name is DARK.”

I am not sure how Elise knows anything about Darth (or Dark) Vader.  What cannot be denied is that she was certain of her knowledge about his name.  She argued with me for a while about it and eventually I dropped it.  I may have been right about Dark Vader’s real name, but getting a four year old to believe that I knew what I was talking about was a mountain I couldn’t climb.

Mark Twain, a long time ago, wrote, “"It's not what we don't know that gets us in trouble. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so.”

Of course, being in the medical field, I see this a lot.  Many of my patients know a lot more than I do and not only that, but they have access to Google.  Unfortunately, they still need someone to write them the prescriptions that they are sure that they need.

I think of Jeremiah, the prophet in the Old Testament.  He was called to speak truth to the people and tell them to turn from their wicked ways or else God would judge their land.

The problem was that there was an abundance of false prophets who prophesied peace, prosperity, and victory over the enemy nation of Babylon.  Jeremiah told the Jews, “Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail.” (Jeremiah 7:8 ESV)

Given a choice between Jeremiah’s words, which required life change and the false prophets’ words which promised God’s blessing with minimal effort, there was no question as to which words the people wanted to trust.  So it was that city of Jerusalem fell in 586 BC amidst great slaughter and devastation.

A huge number of opinions does not equal a fact.  Truth is not achieved simply by polling the people.

Our goal should be to find truth and, on the way, we must listen to voices that challenge our opinions and even words that make us feel uncomfortable.  Our goal is not to reinforce our beliefs, but to learn.

Otherwise, we might end up in the sad state of a four year old girl arguing with her dad about the real name of  “Dark Vader.”

The Tallest Mountain?

 

 

Everyone knows what the highest mountain in the world is.  Mt. Everest, stands 29,031 feet above sea level and is the peak that everyone wants to climb for bragging rights.  The next two highest mountains are K2 and Kangchenjunga -- both of which are actually more difficult to climb than Mt. Everest.

These peaks are amazing, the only three peaks on this planet that rise above 28,000 feet elevation.  Climbing them requires a high level of skill and for most humans, a good supply of oxygen.

There is some argument about what the highest mountain peak really is.  The reason for this is that some peaks have their bases far beneath the surface of the ocean.  By this measure, Mauna Kea, although its peak only rises 13,803 feet above sea level, has a higher rise from its base to its peak than Mt. Everest.  Mauna Kea has a difference in elevation from its base to its peak of 30,610 feet – significantly more than the distance that Mt. Everest lies above sea level.

I don’t suppose it matters much -- there are no trophies give to mountains for heights.  More than that, mountains aren’t living things and they do not really care which one of them is tallest.

It is different with people.  When we look at where someone is at today, we only see their position at this moment in time.  What we don’t see is the long journey behind them, the adversity they encountered along the way, and the times when, in the midst of the chaos of their childhood or teen years, they almost gave up.

Many people are more like Mauna Kea than Mt. Everest.  They had to climb thousands of feet just to get to sea level.  Far more important than someone’s current position and attainment is their trajectory.

Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, “Judge not that you be not judged.” (Matthew 7:1)  There are many reasons that we should not sit in judgment on others, but one of them is simply that unless we know a person's whole story, we cannot adequately assess who someone is and how far they have come.

For some of us start life at 18,000 feet elevation, while others begin their lives a mile below sea level.  The important questions really aren’t how tall you are, but rather, where have you come from and where are you heading.

For my money, Mauna Kea is more impressive than Mr. Everest, not because of its peak, but because of its roots.  The same is true of people.

God or Vegetables?

 

"Dad, Magnolia is wrong!"  Elise said to me firmly -- quite of nowhere.  I wondered what brought this disagreement about.  Magnolia and Elise are both four-years old and they are both very certain about their opinions, but both are occasionally (often?) wrong.

"What is she wrong about?"  I asked.  

"Magnolia says that it is God that makes us grow," Elise said.  "But I told her she was wrong!  It isn't God that makes us grow, it is vegetables!"

I chuckled a little.  Elise does eat her vegetables well.  "Is Mac and Cheese vegetables?"  I asked her.

"Yes," she said.  Then thought for a moment, "No, Dad, Mac and Cheese is not vegetables, but it is still very tasty."

"I think you both are right," I said.  "Vegetables give you special vitamins that help you grow big and strong, but without God, we wouldn't be able to grow either.  There are probably other things that it takes to grow besides those things.  This is something that is multi-factorial, Elise."

We moved on to discuss other important subjects, but I could tell that Elise was still certain that she was right, while her friend was incorrect.  One thing is certain, Elise is growing -- as are all of her siblings.

I have heard parents say that they wish they could keep their children small forever.  I suppose that they really mean that they would like to freeze time and stay in a particular special moment, but if Elise was correct, all you would have to do is stop giving your children vegetables and they would cease growing.  From what I have seen, even children who mainly eat French fries and chicken nuggets still seem to grow -- and no, French fries are not a vegetable.

Psalms 73:26 says, "My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; He is mine forever."

Magnolia is more right than my daughter.  It is God who gives us strength and helps us grow.  I know that I depend on Him and the darker the day, the greater is my need for the courage that only He can offer.

We do need to healthy things, like broccoli and tomatoes, to be healthy and grow.  Even more than that, we need to have our feet on the Rock and our hand in the hand of our Heavenly Father.  He will lead us in ways that helps us grow -- even after we have attained our adult height.

Seeing and Believing

 

Lo, one day I visited my office forthwith to examine and treat the maladies and plagues which are afflicting the people of Brookneal.  It so passed that as I was in the House of Healing, there in Brookneal, that a woman of the common folk presented herself to my sight.

"Art thou new here?"  She queried of me.

This struck me as an odd question, for behold, I have served the County of Campbell nigh on seven years.  "I started in this office in Anno Domine 2017," quoth I.  "So, I am new, but not Brand Spanking New."

"Oh," she said.  "Well, I ain't never seen you here before."

"Well, my Fair Lady, that is because I am the Emperor's New Physician and only people of GREAT Quality can see me.  Welcome to the club!"  Is what I desired to say to her, but I held my peace and only said, "I suppose that is because you have been seeing other doctors, but you get to see me now."

This seemed to satisfy her curiosity, at least for the moment and we moved on to other things, such as her health and well-being and discussions of my travels from the far land of Indiana and my youth in the land that was round on the ends and HI in the middle were left for Another Day.

I continued to ponder on this subject, thinking on things that are not seen and whether or not we believe in spite of our lack of vision.  In the Gospel of John, we may read the story of the Apostle Thomas, who after the Resurrection of Jesus heard the stories of a living Jesus and found himself unable to believe.

Sometime later, Jesus revealed Himself to this Doubting Apostle and Thomas, in spite of his doubts, found himself unable to deny the reality of the Resurrection.  

To him, Jesus saith, "Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed:  blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." (John 20:29)

It is only through the eyes of faith that we can believe the things which we have not seen with our own retinas and optic nerves.  And yet, there is a tremendous blessing for those who trust a risen Savior, even though they have never touched his nail pierced hands or spear pierced side.

This blessing is far greater than the blessing received by those who believe in the reality of the Emperor's New Physician of Brookneal without standing in his presence (or reading his blog).

Unbreakable!

 

“Dad,” Elise said.  “I cannot break my dress!”

I looked at her.  I wasn’t sure that Elise's dress really looked like it was indestructible.  It looked nothing like the flame-retardant suits that some folks wear around the racetrack.

“It is made of cotton!”  She said proudly.  “Cotton is not like glass.  It doesn’t break.”

At least I could see where she was going.  “Yes,” I said agreeably.  “Cotton doesn’t break like glass does.  It’s surprising they don’t make dinner plates out of cotton.”

Elise nodded her head wisely.  If she was tsar of the manufacturing, a lot more things would be made of cotton.

A few days later, the two of us were together.  Elise had her boots with her, but she wasn’t wearing them.  Instead, she was standing on top of them, bouncing up and down.

“I think you should probably stop bouncing on those boots,” I told her.  “You might make it hard to wear them in the future.”

“Don’t worry Dad,” Elise told me with confidence.  “These boots are made of cotton!”

This was a punchline I wasn’t expecting.  Of course, the boots weren’t made of cotton.  I’m guess they were made of some leather-like material.  More than that, cotton is not nearly as unbreakable as my four-year old daughter believes.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians, “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.  We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.  Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.” (II Corinthians 4:8-10 NLT)

Paul went through suffering that would destroy most of us.  He was probably made of sterner stuff than the average human, but even he would have broken had it not been for the fact that he was “never abandoned by God.”

None of us can stand for long by ourselves.  Each one of us has a breaking point and yet, as we lean on divine power, we can survive terrible suffering.  It is not that we are enough, but that our God is enough.  He it is that can make us strong – even stronger, in fact, than indestructible cotton.

Hard Words

 

 

“Elise,” our four year old’s brother said urgently.  “What do you call animals that lions catch and eat.”

For the last three weeks, our home has been deluged with coloring pages of lions and tigers.  Elise loves to color (some might call it scribble) and the only thing she wants to color are pictures of big cats.  Other girls might like princess pictures or things like that, but Elise has moved from an obsession with dinosaurs onto tigers.

Elise began to think.  You could see on her face that she was trying to remember if she learned about this in preschool.  “Come on, Elise,” Elliot said.  “What do you call animals that lions eat?”

At this point, something clicked in Elise’s brain.  “You call them MEAT!”  She said and shrieked with laughter.

“No,” Elliot said.  “They are prey.”

Elise was not listening to her brother at all.  “They’re meat!  They’re meat!”  She chortled as she colored a coloring page with a tiger on it a luminescent shade of green.

Lions are supposedly the kings of the jungle.  Whether or not the other animals view them as such, they have been named animal royalty by humans.

(Lions are not particularly royal, neither do they live in the jungle – they live on the savanna.)

In a way, I suppose it doesn’t really matter if you call antelopes prey or meat, the ones that are caught by lions do not enjoy their fate.  A cow on the table is steak or beef, but the name doesn’t change the life changing event that brings them to the dinner plate.

It seems as though humans are good at giving things names that soften the impact of their actions.  Pastors have moral failings rather than immoral, sinful behavior.    People don’t tell the whole truth rather than indulge in lies.

The problem is that as long as we are not honest with ourselves about the significance of our behavior, we will never have victory over it.  In Romans 12:3, Paul told the Roman Christians, “I give each of you this warning: Don't think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.” (NLT)

Honesty about the severity of our sin and the impact it has had on those around us is the beginning of a new path that leads way from euphemisms and towards conquering that sin.  That is the most important thing of all.

The Real Cure

 

 

“What do you have there?”  I asked my four-year old daughter.  She seemed to be carrying a magazine that looked suspiciously like one of my medical journals.

“It is a doctor’s magazine!”  She told me proudly.

“Interesting,” I said.  “Are you learning lots of things about being a good doctor?”

“Yes,” she said with confidence.  She flipped the magazine open and stopped at a page which had pictures of people with skin disorders that seemed to have waited too long to seek medical attention.

“What are those pictures of?”  I questioned my daughter.

“These people have TERRIBLE rashes!”  She told me definitively.  I could see that my daughter, precocious as she is, has a future in the medical field.  Maybe she could even start work soon to help me out in my office.

“Do you think they need a special cream to help them get better?”

“Oh, no!”  She shook her head.  These people were too far gone for cream to help them out.  “They don’t need cream.  They need a doctor!”

I found this interchange with my young daughter quite amusing.  At the same time, there is some truth to what she said.  I see people in my office every day who thought that what they needed was not a doctor, it was a particular home remedy.  The Googled their symptoms and tried all of the things that Chat GPT recommended – twice – before finally knuckling under and coming to see me for some other treatments.

It seems that Jesus understood this for He said, “They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”  (Mark 2:17)

In this case, He was speaking of people living holy, righteous lives.  Perhaps there was a little bit of a dig at the religious people of His day.  The Pharisees believed that they were “all that.”  They needed no help because they were completely righteous.

The reality is that all of us – even the best – need Jesus’ help.  We cannot truly overcome sin, questionable motivations, and bad attitudes without His help.  And yet, we struggle along, putting the same, unhelpful creams on the rashes of our soul.

What we really needed the whole time is not Dr. Chat GPT, or a special spiritual salve.  What we needed was a specialist capable of diagnosing our heart condition.  What we needed most was a Savior.

Higher than a House!

 

“Elise, what animal can jump higher than a house?”  Elise’s dad was asking her a really hard question.

Elise thought and thought.  “I think that Mr. Dinosaur can jump higher than a house!”  She told me with confidence.  (Mr. Dinosaur is a small stuffed T. Rex that hangs out with Elise at bedtime.)

Elise’s sister, Victoria, was listening in on this conversation and she decided to put in her two cents.  “No, Elise,” she said.  “Any animal can jump higher than a house, because a house can’t jump!”

“Well,” I said, trying to encourage both of my daughters.  “Elise is right that a dinosaur can probably jump higher than a house (that is, if there were any dinosaurs still around to jump), but Victoria you are right that houses don’t jump.”

I began thinking about this riddle and I realized that it isn’t totally accurate.  I suppose that any animal can jump as high as a house, but some animals simply don’t jump.  Elephants, Hippos, Rhinos, and Sloths do not jump at all, therefore they can’t jump higher than a house – they, like a house, don’t jump.

Somehow from there, my mind went to the famous theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking.  Stephen Hawking couldn’t jump higher than a house, although to turn things around a little bit, a house couldn’t jump higher than Stephen Hawking either.  I’m not sure who should feel worse about this comparison, the house or Stephen Hawking.

(I know Mr. Hawking is no longer with us, but it still is an interesting theoretical thing to contemplate.)

Then, what about Baba Yaga’s house?  Since it stands on chicken legs, surely it cannot only walk around, but jump!  Suddenly, my amazing riddle to stump my four-year-old daughter disappeared in a cloud of mythological dust.

Some of us, quite simply are over thinkers.  We analyze things to death – even children’s riddles that are simply designed to amuse and not bemuse the hearers.  The problem, of course, is that overthinking can lead to anxiety and distress.

Psalms 94:19 says, “When doubts filled my mind, your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer.”  (NLT)

There isn’t really any solution for doubt and anxiety better than relying on God and feeling His comforting arms supporting us.  For, doubts do dismay and anxieties destroy peace, but God’s love reaches past all of them to give wholeness. 

He even grants peace to those of us who can’t decide who really can jump higher than a house.

Changing Things Up

 

 

“How are things going?”  I asked the older gentleman sitting across from me.

“Terrible,” he replied.  “I just don’t feel good most days.  I’m tired and out of sorts and none of my doctors can figure out what is going on with me.”

I looked up. I was one of his doctors and I could tell he was feeling frustrated.

It had been three months since Al had been in last and these were the same sorts of things he had been talking about the previous time he was in.  “Have you started using your CPAP machine yet?”  I asked him.

“No,” he said.  “I can’t use that thing.  It gives me claustrophobia.  I tried it once a year ago and I could tell right away it was a no go for me.”

“I think it would help,” I said.  “You definitely have sleep apnea.  How about smoking.  Have you cut back or quit that?”

“No,” Al said slowly.  “I haven’t really made much headway there either.”

We went over a couple of other things that I had suggested the last time he was in the office, and it turned out that he had implemented zero of them.  “I guess I’m not a very good patient, am I?”  He asked, ruefully.

“You’re a normal patient,” I said.  “Most of us struggle to do things we know we should, but I’ll keep bringing them up and hopefully as time goes by you will begin to feel better.  I know you won’t feel 17 again, but I think you could feel quite a bit better than you do right now.”

There is a famous quote (misattributed to Albert Einstein) that says, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Even as we come to the beginning of 2024, it bears asking the question, “How was 2023 for you?” 

This is not a question about financial valuation or wonderful trips.  The question is how is your relationship with God and your family today, January of 2024, compared to those same relationships a year ago?

Hopefully, you can say that they have improved over the last year, but most of us will admit that they could be better.  The question then is very simple: “What are you going to do differently next year to make sure that these things improve?”

The point is that if you do the same things in 2024 that you did in 2023, you should expect the same results.  If you spend limited time in prayer, limited time with your wife (or husband), and continue to be highly critical of your family members, there is no reason to believe that your relationships with the most important people in your world will do anything other than stagnate.

In Ephesians 4:22-24 Paul said, “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”

I pray that as we head into the new year, we would make wise decisions about the most important things in our lives – our relationships with God and the people around us.  If we reach January 1^st of 2025 and our bank accounts are full and overflowing and our relationships are bankrupt, that will be a disaster.  Far better to make different (better) decisions than in the past, for that is the only way that we will see the results we really want.

Inaccurate Lyrics

 

 Lo, it came to pass that a group from my church passed into yonder community round about Long Island, Virginia and sang goodly carols for a brief time the other evening.  For the space of an hour and a half or nigh on two hours, we traversed the rural roads and made a joyous if not always beautiful sound.

The older people who listened to our singing seemed duly impressed, although certainly our next stop is NOT Carnegie Hall.

As we lifted our voices, I thought upon the words of the carols.  It striketh me that many of the songs that are sung at this time are clearly not based upon reality.  There never was a magic hat that wakened a snowman from his icy stupor, nor was there a man dressed in scarlet who requested a caribou like animal to pull his sleigh because of its oddly colored nose.  In point of fact, I am not totally certain that there is a man dressed in red who lives with elves at the North Pole.

(Somehow, our group neglected all mention of the Klaus, reindeer, and snowmen in our songs.)

The hymns that speak of Christ’s birth are also full of mythology as well, as many are quick to point out.  There is no certainty that our Savior was born at night, that no crying He made, or that there were three magi.  There is nothing that tells us that Jesus was even born “In the bleak midwinter.”  Certainly, snow was not piled "snow on snow" -- at least not in the Judean hillside or the shepherds would not have been abiding in the fields.

I wonder if those who pick apart the song lyrics of Christmas carols have boring day jobs or if they are simply very literal minded individuals who despise poetry. 

It seemeth to me that far more important than the exact accuracy of the lyrics is the reality of Christ’s birth and of the joy that should bring to the lives of those who have come to know Him. 

What songs like Away in a Manger, In the Bleak Midwinter, and Silent Night lack in accuracy, they make up in pure an adulterated joy for the knowledge that though we did not deserve it, God came down to earth to love and minister to us.  For, this baby, born into a poor, common Jewish family, would grow up to save all who believe on His name.

Truly, this is what I feel when I hear Christmas carols.  This too, is what the people of Long Island felt too when we sang for them one chilly December night in Virginia.

Screen Time?

 

“I want your phone!”  The little girl wailed to her mother.  “I want your phone!”

I wondered if the girl needed to call a “lifeline” for a quiz answer or if she simply wanted to check up on the latest war news from the Middle East.  Maybe she had some stocks she needed to sell before the price dropped any more.  Since she looked like she was around three years old, I guessed that neither one of these speculations was accurate.

As the girl continued to make noise, her mother seemed to get increasingly uncomfortable.  “Alright, Josie,” she said at last.  “Here you go.”

Josie took the phone and expertly navigated the password screen and launched You Tube.  It was clear that this wasn’t her first rodeo – probably not her second or third either.

As usual, I began to analyze the scene in front of me.  The younger generation has a significantly different relationship with technology than I have.  My first computer was an Apple II Plus computer that came from a yard sale.  It had 48 kilobytes of memory and line graphics.  It was anything but addictive and playing Oregon Trail and text adventures on it was more frustrating than inspiring.  It certainly wasn't something I carried with me in the car or on my travels.

For kids, though, it is all fun and games, it entertains them when they are sitting in boring waiting rooms and seems to have no downside (other than running down the battery on their mom’s phone).

At the same time, excessive screen time isn’t healthy for kids.  I have recently read the book, “The Coddling of the American Mind” and while it isn’t the focus of the book, the authors make the point that too much screen time is unhealthy for kids.  In point of fact, the Academy of Pediatrics recommends zero screen time for children under two years of age, under one hour per day for children two to twelve years old, and less than two hours a day for teenagers and adults (yes, adults should not spend more than two hours a day starting at screens).

I wonder if the reason that adults have so much difficulty controlling their kids’ screen time is because they are uncontrolled themselves.  Adults should be limiting their time looking at screens to two hours a day or less and yet, the average adult in the United States spends slightly more than seven hours a day looking at screens.  That time is divided up between a number of different things, but 80 percent is spent watching movies, television, and online videos.  18 Average Screen Time Statistics [2023]: How Much Screen Time Is Too Much? - Zippia

The Apostle Paul told the Colossian church, “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.” (Col. 3:21)  I can think of little more discouraging than for parents to expect children to do things that parents are unwilling to do themselves.

In many ways I feel like an old man yelling at clouds.  Time has moved on.  Technology is here to stay.  We drive horseless carriages around at breakneck speed and have wrist communicators.  We have more computing power in our pocket than the NASA had in its whole operation when it launched the first Apollo spacecraft.

This doesn’t stop this technology from being dangerous, both to us and our children.  More than that, history is clear that what we do in moderation our children will do to excess and what we do to excess, our children will max out.  Screens are addictive and omnipresent.  They need to be controlled or they will rule both in our lives and those of our children – even if they are only three years old.