Grace,
Sometimes I wonder what life will be like when you grow up. It’s not the most productive train of thought, but I hop on it nonetheless. Will we finally have flying cars? I hope we at least have found something else to fuel our cars besides oil-based gasoline.
Because people talk about it so often, I wonder what the Internet will be like. Some people now call it Web 2.0 now. What number will they be on when you’re 18? Web 247? I’m sure by that time, you’ll be teaching me new tricks, and I’ll be hopelessly behind.
I have little doubt technology and social networking will continue converging, and search engines will continue playing a key role in people’s lives, whether they realize it or not. PageRank — Google’s way of sorting search results — already helps us determine where we spend money by listing certain stores before others. It also helps determine where we eat and visit and increasingly likely to determine which clubs we join and where we attend church. John Battelle depicts much of this well.
How far are we from allowing search engines and computer technology determine a person’s worth? Will PageRank lead to PeopleRank? Many of us already have done vanity search to see what comes up. We look for our friends. MySpace connects us through technology. Blogs are jumping by leaps and bounds, becoming the common way young people communicate. How easily search engines find us determine our significance on the web. The number of links to a person’s web page, the number of hits it receives and how helpful people find the information there determines how valuable that person is in a search engine.
Will your generation continue this trend and allow the Web to become the ultimate dating service, allowing PageRank to determine whether someone is in your league? It seems far-fetched, but possible. If one person is listed 110th and you are 75th, will you consider that person unfit for you? Will you do a Web search for each person you meet in order to learn more about them?
I hope not. Yancey would call it a system of unGrace. Search engines are cold, uncaring. They don’t seek redemption, they seek order. While there’s a place for that, there’s a need for compassion. There’s a need for people to connect. Human interaction is needed beyond technological devices. There’s a need to see value in each person, no matter how important a technological mechanism deems them. There’s a need to share Grace with people who have been pushed to the margins. That’s what Christ did for us, and what He calls us to do.
Dad
A little more than a month ago I went to a small Texas town to do what I thought was going to be a story about a Baptist church helping a community recover from a fire that burned several buildings in the city’s historic downtown area. What I found was a better story.
We arrived a few days after the fire and found the church holding it’s annual distribution of school supplies for families that couldn’t afford them. The fire was still on many people’s minds, but the volunteers chose to push forward with one of the congregation’s largest annual outreaches.
I was introduced to a man who was directing people toward a registration desk. Though I can’t remember his name, we’ll call him Armando. As we spoke, I discovered that a few years ago he and his family were coming to get school supplies like many of the families were that day. In addition to the school supplies, they found helpful, kind people. People who genuinely cared. The church treated his family to a meal and provided all the supplies his children needed.
So the family began attending the congregation. They felt this was where they needed to be. They wanted to be part of a caring community of believers. Eventually, Armando went on a mission trip to the lower Rio Grande Valley and built a home for a family who needed one. He worked for a week with his fellow church members constructing walls and putting a roof on the structure.
Little did Armando know, that would be the last hammer he would pick up for a while. Shortly after, the bricklayer hurt his arm playing softball and could not work. When a friend and deacon visited him, he noticed the man’s house wasn’t much nicer than the one in the Valley that church members deemed unsuitable for living.
If the church could build a home in South Texas, surely it could help one of it’s members, the deacon thought to himself. Armando had given his time to help others when he could have focused on himself. In a short time, the congregation built a new home for the family.
One day years ago Armando and his family came to a church for school supplies. What they found changed their lives and the lives of a family in the Valley. Grace abounded. God’s work is clear. That day Armando stood pointing people toward a registration desk. There, people could sign up for a changed life.
According to a recent 20/20 story, people’s names can affect how people are treated. Certain names conjure certain images or stereotypes. The reporter even notes that some people try to give their children names that suggest they are from a financially well-off family.
This is nothing new. In biblical times, names reflected who people were. Adam simply means man. Jacob meant deceiver. Later, he became Israel because he “struggles with God.” People who heard the stories involving these characters knew names were significant. The mere mention of a name let people know what a certain person was like. Names alone told a story.
I have a similar hope for you, Grace. I dream that you to live up to your name. I want you to be Grace and bring Grace with you everywhere you go. When people hear your name, I want them to think about what Grace means. In a book I just finished, Philip Yancey writes:
“A phrase used by both Peter and Paul has become one of my favorite images from the New Testament. We are to administer, or ‘dispense,’ God’s Grace, say the two apostles. The image brings to mind one of the old-fashioned ‘atomizers’ women used before the perfection of spray technology. Squeeze a rubber bulb, and droplets of perfume come shooting our of the fine holes at the other end. A few drops suffice for a whole body; a few pumps change the atmosphere in a room. That is how Grace should work, I think. It does not convert the entire world or an entire society, but it does enrich the atmosphere.” (158)
I think Yancey is right. A little bit of Grace goes a long way. But a lifetime of Grace can change the world. You may not realize exactly how you are changing the world, but you are. Grace, today a say a prayer that you lead a life that lives up to your name.
Dad
Sometimes our lives are filled with exciting moments — new adventures, special moments, sudden insights. They are the points each of us look back to and say that is where things changed. Those memories never fade.
Then there are nights like tonight with my wife. It’s season premiere week. We sat together on the couch, watched television and talked. We viewed My Name is Earl, The Office and Grey’s Anatomy. We held each other close, laughing during the first two shows and watching the last one reletively quietly. We didn’t talk about her much, but I know Grace is largely on our minds. It’s just a matter of time now.
We probably won’t remember this night six months from now. But these are small moments that are special. The nights couples quietly bond over a meal, movie or television show. The small nights typically far outnumber the large moments. And it’s these small moments that build strong relationships. They add up over time.
Thank you, God, for giving us little moments of Grace.
Some people play with words. Others finesse them. For these people, each word is critical to everything they write. Writing is an art. As a result, they compose beautifully written pieces that flow smoothly or jolt abruptly as needed for a required effect.
I admire these folks. I watch them from a distance because I am not one of them.
I manhandle words. I grapple with them and wrestle them to the ground until they do what I want them to do. I make them work for me. Thoughts, impressions and observations spring from within me, and I try to tie them down on a blank screen. It’s enjoyable, but very little is romantic about the process. Often it is difficult. Like my thoughts, words come out in bursts and need to be connected to other words in order to express any coherent thought. I don’t plan my writing, I feel it. Words either feel right, or they don’t.
That’s the scientific method I use. English teachers don’t teach it. The great writers didn’t and don’t use it. I don’t necessarily recommend it. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t, and I have to start all over again.
But the beautiful part is that God uses these words to communicate to people. Not just through this blog. I actually have a real job that requires I write. People read my work on a normal basis. When I sit down and think about it, I’m amazed. Some people find my words interesting enough to spend their time on. And each reader takes away a different idea. The words provoke different thoughts in people’s minds.
That’s Grace. God can take the words of someone who manhandles words to provoke thoughts in other people. He gives that gift — which I certainly can take no credit for — and uses it for His glory. In case I haven’t thanked you lately for blessing me as you have, thanks. Thanks for giving me something I don’t deserve. Thanks for working guiding my life so I can use the gifts you’ve given me.
Grace. What a beautiful word.
