Richard Littledale's
Views on the News: March 2003

scape from onversation?

"In the beginning was the Word" - thus begins one of the most artful and poetic descriptions of the life of Jesus Christ - the Gospel of John. The word is a curious description for Jesus, since he embodied in the flesh all the words of promise once spoken in God's words. The life of the word was then recorded in words by John, about which countless millions of other words have now been written.

The question is, would a word from God be sufficient if He wanted to communicate now? People used to exchange words in carefully crafted letters, and then patiently wait for the completion of their journey through the post. When technology allowed the words to be squeezed up and fired down a phone line, fax machines appeared on many desks to speed up the exchange of words. Then e-mail came along and the time taken in crafting the words was superseded by the desire to get them out and back as quickly as possible. The "e-mail recall notice" is testament to the dire warnings our mothers used to make about speaking in haste and repenting at leisure!

Meanwhile, people were speaking in places they had never spoken before - in trains and on mountain tops and (often illegally) at the steering wheel! Words, however, seemed inadequate, and picture messaging was born. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, thousands of words were saved as pictures, both beautiful and inconsequential, were bounced around the world from mobile to mobile. And now, 3G phones have arrived! (See). In a throw back to conversations of old, we can actually see the face of the person to whom we are speaking. There are, however, two advances on old fashioned conversation. The first is that we can replace our inadequate description of an event with video footage of it, and the second is that if we tire of our partner in conversation we can simply break the connection!

So, if God owned a phone, would it be a 3G? Undoubtedly it would if He believed that it would make us listen! However, the costliest form of communication is always face to face. It is costly because long distances must be covered to make it possible, and costly because it involves the risk of rejection. A broken phone connection is easier to bear than a broken conversation.

Years ago, a missionary working in Southern India was presented with a beautiful shell by a local man. Knowing that such shells could only be found on a beach many miles away, she expressed gratitude at the long walk which the gift had entailed. Smiling, the man replied in broken English "long walk part of gift".

If the Word were to speak a word to you today, would you break the connection?