Connection

Our world has been described as "connected."  Certainly a wide range of devices allows us to communicate in real time all over the world.  Yesterday I saw the movie "Chef," in which a tech savvy 10-year-old propels his father's food truck business into national prominence, using a wide variety of applications that I really wish I understood.  Most surely, technology has redefined what it means to be connected.

Yet in the more conventional sense, I wonder if we aren't less connected.  From the Latin, "connect" means to "bind together" or to "be united physically."  However, on Google, seven out of ten definitions of connect come before "to form a relationship or feel an affinity" and "provide or have a link or relationship with (someone or something)."  Earlier definitions have to do with electrons, connecting to utilities, and relating events. 

On a bicycle outing near Georgetown last week, I was struck with the lack of connection that our devices have created.  I saw two coeds walking together, each having conversations with others on their phones.  They may each have had an electronic connection with someone else, but they had lost forever the opportunity to "bind together" with each other in that moment. 

Several others had conversations on their digital devices and missed the beauty of the day, spring flowers blooming, the rush of the creek below, or probably even the cool air wafting up from the creek to refresh and slightly chill the hot summer day.  Lost forever were those opportunities to connect with nature, some would even say God, in that moment. 

For someone who hasn't had a significant other in her life for over 20 years, tears came to my eyes at the young bride who ignored her new husband while chattering about meaningless trivia during a phone conversation with someone else while he forlornly looked on.  What a lost moment that will never occur again. 

I have been spent time with people who kept texting others.  That sure tells me how important our time together is to them.

During the eight years that I have lived in Washington and used the Metro daily, I have noticed a change in connection between strangers.  When I first came, strangers actually talked and shared the ups and downs of their days with each other. I learned about things going on in the city and even got a lead for a potential job from someone I didn't know moments before. Synchronicities could actually happen. While I do still occasionally see people who get on the train together and continue to talk, more often I see people on their devices and in their own worlds.  Even walking down the street, people have their ear buds in listening to music or podcasts or are talking or texting, oblivious to what is going on around them. 

I've said before that I believe God is in that space that connects us one to another--what "binds us together," as it were.   I cannot help but wonder if we aren't cutting ourselves off from God and each other when we choose electronics over true connection with a loved one, friend, or even a stranger, who is actually present with us. 

A few months ago, I posed the possibility of living each day as if it were our last in a blog post. (11/28/13 and 3/15/14) I think that question might well be extended to our "connections."  While I am certain that if this were my last day, there are some people that I'd want to "reach out and touch" digitally, I also know that if I'd been that young bride mindlessly talking about the weather and where she'd been shopping, instead of looking into the eyes of my her husband, I would have chosen differently.

One definition of an addiction is when we use an activity--drinking alcohol, taking drugs, overeating., sex, work...or using electronics--to keep us from connecting with those around us.  While I love my devices as much as the next person, I think the use of our devices all boils down to the intention we bring to our connections.  Is my intention to bind me together with God and people around me?  Is my intention to use my device to connect or am I using it to keep me from connecting?

Last winter I introduced the Grocery Store Game (12/1/13) as a way to connect with people around us, and it does work.  However, making connection is much harder when the people around us have their ears blocked off or their eyes and brains engaged in other activity.  I am not quite sure how to start the connections again, but I am pretty certain that if I take out my ear buds and put my device in my pocket, I will be closer to having an answer. So I did that today.  I can't say that I made any great connections, but I know that I am closer than when I am plugged in and tuned out to my immediate world.