Do you remember the cartoon ReBoot? Bob, the guardian, would "mend and defend" the city of Mainframe not only from its enemies but also from "games", big purple cubes that drop into random sections of the city. Bob would rush into the incoming game and be cast as a character in its environment where he would stop the "user" from beating it. It was a great gimmick for a kid's show. In one episode Bob could be a swashbuckling pirate captain, next week an ace pilot, or maybe a time traveling dinosaur hunter.
Bob's role changed in order to fit the environment in which he found himself. I wonder if sometimes we mimic this same behavior. I know that I can be found guilty of morphing to fit my environment. It's easy to segment your behavior to fit the people you are with. When hanging with the guys our senses of humor may tend to vary, certain jokes are funnier at a bar than they might be at, say, Bible study.
The faster our lives seem to be going, it becomes easier to splinter our personalities into a variety of aspects that will best suit each environment. We are adaptable creatures. It's a natural human coping mechanism. Switching from the aggressive, no-quarter-given business attitude of the work week, to one of grace, love and worship on Sundays, becomes as easy as multi-tasking on your PC. Like the clicking of a mouse, we can jump from one personality segment to another.
In fact, these distinctions are fundamental to the workings of the digital technology that surrounds us. In a digital setting, everything is broken into distinct bits into a series of yes or no, 0 or 1, inputs. These bits become bytes, kilobytes, megabytes and so on. Everything has its definitive place and division.
Its the same way when a computer processes real life experiences such as sound or color. A computer's recording of music isn't the same wave that you would hear from an instrument playing, instead it is a rapid-fire series of digital samples, something like 44,100 per second, each a individual decision about the sound. Similarly, to a computer color is seen through a spectral gradient. Where are eyes see pink meld into salmon, a computer sees salmon as Red=204 Green = 102 Blue = 102. Each color is defined by a series of numbers and then put into a single image based on the number of pixels adding up to its resolution.
Now consider how we are inundated with digital technology. Might this affect the way we interact with the world around us?
I've recently read and even quoted in this blog from authors that touch on this, Adam Frank, Douglas Rushkoff, or Grant Morrison. An astrophysicist, a technological theorist, and a comic book writer, each at the top of their various fields. And in each of their books I have found similar themes. These authors have all articulated that human culture, technology, and beliefs are partners in a dance through the decades. The technological advances we make affect how we interact with one another and what we believe about the world around us and vice versa.
But what about when those distinct divisions come in contact with a holy savior that plainly asks for all of you?
In fact Jesus said in Mark 12:30 that the greatest command was this:
"Love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."
That doesn't leave much room for a segment of life which Christ doesn't touch. We surrender all to Christ and make Him king of our entire lives. Christ said that he came to give us "life, and have it to the full." Paul encourages us in 1 Corinthians 11:1 to follow "his example as he follows Christ".
In this way we are more similar to analog technologies, than the digital ones that are filling our lives. Analog is defined by Webster's as being a mechanism in which data is represented by continuously variable physical quantities." Consider an analog clock. The hands are in constant movement, a physical representation of the passing time. They display time to the eye in the same way we experience it in real life. A digital clock by contrast makes decisive divisions between one minute to the next.
Similar to these analog technologies we are analogs of Christ. To bear the name Christian is to literally be a "Little Christ" as Martin Luther put it. We represent Him to the world AT ALL TIMES, not just on Sundays or Bible studies. Consider how you can emulate Christ. How you can grow to reflect His character each and everyday, so that we may accomplish the vision of Ephesians 4:13:
"...until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."
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