Wednesday, February 11, 2009

The Space in Between, Part IV

This looks like another picture of an airplane wing, but it's not. It's a picture of a mountain. Mount Shasta, I think, though I'm not quite sure. Let's assume for today that I'm right.

According to Wikipedia, a Boeing-737 has a wingspan of just under 95 feet and is 36.5 feet tall. That's why the pit crew people who so quickly scurry around it look pretty small. Not like tiny little ants, but even big guys who can hoist the luggage with the neon "HEAVY" tags are dwarfed when the plane drives up. At any rate, a plane looks pretty big, compared to us.

And Mount Shasta? At 14,179 feet (also from Wikipedia), it is the second-highest peak in the Cascade range. In other terms, it is nearly four hundred airplanes tall.

Yet this photo of a huge and majestic mountain looks like just another picture of an airplane wing because I was sitting on an airplane, far above and to the side. Too often I see life like this, with skewed perspective. There is quite a diversity of application here. I've been listening to folks talking about the potential benefits and worthwhile cautions of technology in biblical community, though, so that's what I'm thinking about right now...

Even as technology-based communication (Facebook, Twitter, texting, etc.) provides ways of exchanging information with others, I'm pretty sure the distance distorts a lot of the message and often creates relational distance in the process. And we don't usually recognize the distance because it all looks pretty clear from where we sit. So much of what we receive is disembodied parts, presenting a picture which does not adequately represent the whole, particularly when separated from genuine, consistent everyday-type relationship.

My deep and growing desire is for deep, authentic relationships with others. I'm still thinking about what all of this means.

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