Culture | Janie B. Cheaney

October 5, 2018October 4, 2018

Recovering a Heritage of Hymns, Part Four

To Sum It Up

Here are three reasons to re-think the contemporary model of congregational singing:

The music. The free-flowing, repetitive character of many praise choruses is designed to make it easy for unchurched people to join in. However, the opposite may be true. The lack of a substantive melody line leaves little for minds and voices to grasp. The tunes are no sooner sung than forgotten, especially since the music is never shown in musical notation. It’s written to be sung to standard guitar chords, which is helpful to worship leaders but difficult for the congregation—who end up “singing along,” rather than singing.
The words. Contemporary worship songs rightly fix on God: His glory, majesty, uniqueness, and faithfulness. Typically they are sung at the beginning of worship during a period that lasts 15-20 minutes while the congregation stands. The words are often meditative and repetitive, for the obvious purpose of creating a mood for worship. However, there are other biblical reasons for singing. Scripture ordains singing for instruction, for encouragement, and for admonishment (Col. 3:15-17, Eph. 5:18-21). The lyrics can be recalled on the road and in the home, while working or walking and talking with our kids. As the Lord takes pleasure in his people, so they should take pleasure in him: “Let the godly one exult in glory, let them sing for joy on their beds” (Psalm 149:5).
The history. Discarding the old disconnects contemporary Christians from some of the best in their history: musically, theologically, and spiritually. The foundation of Western music, including the best of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky, is the church. Until recently, the Christian songbook included songs from the earliest days of the church all the way up to the present. Now, the ever-changing video screen overwhelmingly features the lyrics and melodies written just yesterday, and many of those will be gone tomorrow.

Again, I’m not suggesting that the church discard all contemporary worship songs. I’m only saying that we already know what stands the “test of time,” and it’s in those hymnbooks stored in the church basement. Some contemporary songs will stand the test of time as well, and we can let time have its say. There’s a reason why Christians still sing “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “Blessed Assurance.” There’s a reason why little children–the world over–still sing “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know.” The Holy Spirit has been at work in the church all through the ages, and these songs are a testimony to His work. Let’s not let them go.

This is the final post in a series on Christian musical heritage. The previous posts are

One: A Tuneful History

Two: Why Let It All Go?

Three: Intentional about Singing

October 2, 2018October 2, 2018

The Judge on the Altar

I don’t write about politics much, because it’s a trap. It’s too easy to see your own “side” as the good guys and the other side as mendacious maniacs (or pick your own alliteration). Worse, it’s too easy to hunker down in the mosh pit and convince yourself that this is the good fight: this bill before Congress, this election, this next Supreme Court Justice. There may certainly be elements of a good fight in any of these, but the real fight is taking place on another level altogether.

Having said that, I’m going to make a political observation. The Democrat party, as a whole (not convicting all Democrats) seems to have sunk their fortunes into a grab bag of propositions that can be lumped together under the heading of “Identity Politics”—IP for short. IP weaves the academic pursuits of latter-day Marxism, deconstructionism and intersectionality among strands of feminism, Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ identity, and other aggrieved groups who haven’t even worked up to being aggrieved yet. Its policies lean toward statist solutions (i.e., big government; welfare; socialist tendencies). In the interests of bipartisanship, I agree that IP would never have taken hold without some justification. Forms of oppression has tainted our country, and injustice lingers on. I disagree about causes and solutions, and I strenuously disagree that oppression is the whole story. But that’s the problem: to many on the far side of IP, oppression is the whole story.

Identity Politics has become a cult. Its sacred history is a catalogue of oppression by white men, its eschatology is the emasculation of white men, its creed is White Men Are Oppressors, and its high priesthood is the Democrat leadership—many of whom are white men, redeemed by sacred rhetoric. Its high religious festivals are elections, both general and mid-term; its ethic is protest and resistance; its holy relics include abortion (as a symbol of a woman’s control over her destiny).

Cults have their heroes and villains and sacrificial victims. Last week we witnessed a ritual sacrifice, complete with ceremony, theater, laying on guilt, and one “lamb without blemish.”

Let me say at the outset, I don’t know the facts of the Ford-Kavanaugh case. Nobody does, except the accused and the accuser, and possibly not even those two, given the tricks that memory plays over time. But adherents of the cult were presented with the perfect victim: not only white and male, but a preppie! Not just privileged, but super-privileged! Not merely a boy scout, but a devout Catholic! Not just innocent of the charge (so he claims), but a virgin at the time! (So he claims.) Everything that radical leftism hates and longs to pull down was sitting before them in that committee room, and they knifed him.

He had his defenders, and won a procedural victory when the Senate Judicial Committee voted him out on strict party lines. But he’s bleeding, and if he makes it to the Supreme Court, he’ll bleed for the next decade at least (if not impeached by a Democrat majority). The cult has worked itself into an ideological frenzy on the merest suggestion. Among the accusations and conclusions I’ve encountered: he was probably drunk at the hearing, he falls into seething rages, he can’t be trusted to coach his daughter’s basketball team, he may have run a high-school rape ring, he got blind drunk at parties in college and there’s just no telling what he did or can do.

I’ve bumped into these allegations without even looking for them; just imagine what I’d find at fever swamps like Think Progress and Democrat Underground. They came not from anonymous angry birds on Twitter, but from mainstream journalists and pundits and authors. Brett Kavanaugh is no longer a man to them—he was never a man, but a symbol of white supremacy in all its wickedness. He’s the merciless slave-owner, the callous CEO, the ogre of the boardroom, the . . . the . . Republican.

The Halifax Chronicle Herald, Bruce MacKinnon

This cartoon was making the rounds over the weekend: Lady Justice, her scales knocked askew, flat on her back, held down with one hand over her mouth by a faceless attacker labeled “GOP.” Yeah, well—what about assumption of guilt, and lack of evidence, and equality under the law, which is why justice is supposed to be blind? To the IP faithful, “procedure” means “stonewalling.” What do they want? A conviction! When do they want it? Now!! And they’ve got it. In another age, they would be yelling, “To the guillotine!”—so we can be grateful for the procedural niceties that remain to us.

Just consider these cartoons, presented from opposite sides of the story. Which has the most emotional punch? Which has the most rational appeal? Can there be any reconciliation between these two views?

“But love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” The great reconciler is at work, but he only works through one heart at a time. Views aren’t reconcilable, but people are.

September 21, 2018

Recovering a Heritage of Hymns, Part Three

Intentional about Singing

Some friends linked to this recent article in Intellectual Takeout: “The Tragic Decline of Music Literacy (and Quality).” The “tragic decline,” at least according to this perspective, has occurred in the general culture. In this, the church may reflect the culture a little too much.

The church of my youth made it a point of pride—too much pride, sometimes—to sing well. As a preteen I attended Sunday-night classes in how to find a pitch, how to harmonize, and how to beat time. I recall one gifted brother who traveled around leading “singing revivals.” Instead of preaching a gospel message every night, he corrected some of our musical errors and refocused our attention on lyrics that may have become dull with repetition. He taught us to sing with more understanding—and gusto. The revival he led at our church was the most memorable I ever attended, and our song service reflected his work for months afterward.

Churches in general (not just the Church of Christ) were more intentional about singing in the past than they are today. But as the church adopted more contemporary music style in worship, a subtle shift began: away from congregational singing and toward a “praise and worship” model. Worship teams replaced the hand-waving song leader and drums provided the steady downbeat that set worshippers swaying and clapping in the pews.

There’s nothing wrong with swaying and clapping–Presbyterians and Episcopalians should try it! Maybe even raise their hands once in awhile. Every generation stamps its own image on the Church and amplifiers certainly don’t scare the Holy Spirit away. Besides, I’ve sat through plenty of listless, uninspired a cappella song services. There’s no scripture-inspired, guaranteed 100% right way to do singing.

Worship teams and bands can create a subtle distinction between themselves and the congregation.

And yet. Worship teams and bands can create a subtle distinction between themselves and the congregation. The congregation can become the “audience.” The worship leaders can become performers. Their voices are heard above all others. Out in the pews, those who have no particular interest in or gift for music are satisfied to leave it to the experts while they stand and lift their voices softly, or not at all. Out in the parking lot, late arrivals can hear the beat but they can’t hear the singing.

Which, I wonder, would God prefer to hear?

Music is God’s gift to everyone, especially the church. It is comfort, inspiration, and joy, especially in participation. Almost anyone can carry a tune and learn to harmonize. Almost anyone can improve on the musical ability he or she already has. And almost every church can be a little more purposeful about congregational singing, by reconnecting to the music, the words, and the joyful participation of the past.

September 15, 2018

Recovering a Heritage of Hymns, Part Two

Why Let It All Go?

One great advantage of classic hymns and gospel songs is that they allow our brothers and sisters of the past to encourage us. Though they are dead, yet they speak (see Hebrews 11:4). We can’t hear George Whitefield or Charles Spurgeon or Jonathan Edwards preach, but we can hear Charles Wesley, John Newton, and Martin Luther through the songs they wrote. Singing connects us to the flow of church history and the work of the Holy Spirit in every age. We don’t just hear about that history—we hear it, in the songs we sing.

The contemporary church, by and large, seem to be letting go of that heritage. Many young people now leading worship services grew up with the contemporary style, and to them the old songs may seem hopelessly archaic, with its thee’s and thou’s, e’en’s and –eth’s. Who talks that way anymore? And really, is it such a tragedy if the old songs are left behind? Doesn’t every age produce bucketloads of songs that only last a generation or two?

They’ve lasted because they still speak

Indeed they do—and that’s all the more reason to pay attention to the ones that have lasted. In any traditional hymnbook you will find words dating from 1500 years B.C. (the Psalms) to the early days of the church, through the early and late monastic periods, all the way through the Reformation and revivals of the 16-19^th centuries. They’ve lasted because they still speak.

Brothers and sisters, let’s not sell ourselves short—or our children. It’s true that some of the lyrics of a song written in 1750 may not be instantly comprehendable, but they’re not obscure either. If you can understand the Bible you can understand Isaac Watts. Fanny J. Crosby is not beyond the comprehension of a five-year-old. You will find, as you teach them to your children, that many of these songs have enormous staying power and will keep speaking long after most of this generation’s set of praise choruses have been forgotten.

Let us also allow our past to speak, as we locate ourselves in the mighty current of the Holy Spirit’s work from the beginning.

This is not to disallow praise choruses or new songs—let’s sing them loud and joyfully. But let us also allow our past to speak, as we locate ourselves in the mighty current of the Holy Spirit’s work from the beginning until now. Let’s include those voices as well as our own, and equip our children to write their songs, too, so the heritage will go on. Hymnody (to use a classic churchy word) is not a wheel to be reinvented, but a wagon to keep rolling. Or—to change the metaphor—a storehouse from which the householder takes treasures old and new (Mt. 13:52).

Recovering a Heritage of Hymns, Part One

September 8, 2018

Recovering a Heritage of Hymns, Part One

(Beginning a series of posts about how church music ain’t what it used to be and what’s maybe not-so-great about that)

A Tuneful History

Picture America in the Year of Our Lord 1801.

What began as thirteen colonies is now fifteen “United States.” The nation is twenty-four years old, its Constitution has been in effect for a little over ten years. Thomas Jefferson is president, and before the end of his first term he will double the territorial size of the United States by negotiating the Louisiana Purchase. But even before they had a legal right to, Americans were moving westward, forming settlements and establishing towns. Every town had at least one church, and soon three or four.

It was the same in the towns they came from: church was the heartbeat of every community, where births were recorded, marriages performed, and funerals preached. The building with the steeple also served as an assembly hall for political and social gatherings, such as the weekly “sing.” Almost everyone sang, for worship and for fun, both secular and sacred, Sundays and Wednesdays and days in between.

In the scattered communities springing up all over the west, many churches didn’t have a pianist to accompany their singing, and often they didn’t have a piano. (Pianos are notoriously hard to transport, especially over the mountains.) Aside from the occasional fiddle or fife, the human voice was the only instrument available. But along with their cookware and bags of meal, settlers carried with them a system of singing introduced by a book called The Easy Instructor, published in Boston in 1801. This is the first published resource for what came to be called “shape-note singing.”

The basic idea is to assign a distinctive shape to each pitch on the do-re-mi scale. Singers who could not read music (that is, recognize pitches by the notes’ position on a five-line staff) would locate pitch by the shape. There’s more than one shape-note system, but this one is standard:

Shape-note singing began in New England but went west with the pioneers and found a permanent home in the south. To get a taste of it, search YouTube for “shape-note singing” and choose among the many associations and clubs (and even churches) that still practice it. The style is loud, brassy, somewhat harsh and not like anything else. It’s not to everyone’s taste, but it’s a link to our past that we can still hear.

So are traditional hymns and psalters, and like shape-note singing, the contemporary church may be close to leaving them behind for good.

* * * * * * * * * * *

A personal recollection: I grew up in the non-instrumental Church of Christ, singing out of a shape-note hymnbook. Church was the pivot of every week: Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night, we were there. At every Sunday service, morning and evening, the pattern was the same—three songs before the sermon, an invitation song after the sermon, a song of meditation before the Lord’s super, and a song of dismissal. On Wednesdays, a devotional service after classes, with two songs, a brief message, an invitation, and a dismissal.

That was a lot of singing!

The first thing visitors noticed when worship started was the absence of a piano, organ, or choir. And the second thing visitors noticed was the power of the singing, especially in an assembly of 100 or more. The harsh, clanging chords of traditional shape-note singing had smoothed out somewhat, but echoes of it lingered, as they do even today. Life-long members of the Church of Christ had sung a cappella from childhood. You heard the parts. More importantly, you heard the voices.

And you heard some good songs. Some cheesy, slap-happy, or spooky ones, too—I remember one about the “All-seeing eye watching you”—but we also sang “My Hope is Built on Nothing Less” and “Abide with Me” and “Rock of Ages”—time-tested classics with sound theology. Those words sank deep within my consciousness, to be recalled later with waves of meaning and emotion. I will always be grateful for this: the melodies and lyrics I never forgot.

In 1970 I enrolled at Abilene Christian College, where a fresh wind was blowing. Nobody wanted to sing those stodgy old hymns anymore: we were singin’ and swayin’ to “My Sweet Lord” by George Harrison and “O Happy Day” as recorded by the Edwin Hawkins Singers. And how about Jesus Christ Superstar? That blew us away! “I Don’t Know How to Love Him”—remember?

You don’t?

In the late seventies my husband and I attended a house church where we sang slow, meditative Psalm adaptations to basic chords strummed on a guitar. We loved “Day by Day” and “Prepare the Way of the Lord” (from the musical Godspell) and songs about fellowship and community. “They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love”—can you hear that one in your head right now?

You can’t?

In the late eighties we joined a startup Orthodox Presbyterian Church that met in a school cafeteria. Most of the other members were of our own age. At that time the church could not afford hymn books, so the music director inserted praise choruses (mostly Psalm-based) among the classic hymns that were printed in each week’s bulletin. At one informal Sunday evening service, one of the brothers brought a guitar and suggested we sing some of the good old classics that we’d sung in the sixties.

No one knew any of them.

What’s my point? That every new generation of Christians now seems to be developing its own songbook and the songs usually don’t outlast that generation. In fact, since they’re not printed on paper but shown on a screen, they might not even outlast this generation. The meditative quality of the words (enhanced by repetition) and the random pattern of the music make some of them as forgettable as a movie soundtrack.

Movie soundtracks are for producing a mood, and certainly it’s important to calm our hearts and shut out worldly concerns when we come together to worship God. And yet, according to the Scriptures, that’s not entirely what our singing is for. According to the Scriptures, our songs are addressed not only to God, but also to each other (Eph. 5:18-21). They are for teaching, admonishing, correcting, and encouraging, drawing us all together with one voice as we offer our sacrifices of praise.

There’s no need to pitch the new songs. But there’s also no need to pitch the old ones either: in fact, we might be carelessly tossing out a priceless heritage our children and grandchildren will never get back. I believe there are good reasons not to do that . . .

Next week: Why Let It All Go?

September 1, 2018

Who Invented Writing? And Why Does the Bible Not Care?

The answer to the first question is, nobody knows. It’s apparently a Sumerian invention, adapted by the Akkadians and picked up by all Middle Eastern cultures. The Phoenicians get credit for developing the first alphabet (22 letters), but it was really a mashup of Egyptian and Sumerian. The Hebrews weren’t far behind, and the Greeks invented vowels. Most of these cultures had some kind of origin story: writing as the gift of a god or demi-god. In the “Phaedrus” dialogue, Socrates tells of the god Theuth, who talked up his invention to the Pharaoh as an aid to wisdom and memory. The King was not impressed; he perceived the written word not as an aid but as a crutch:

By telling them many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellows.

That’s a good description of pretentious windbaggery, and may be one reason why the Bible makes no mention of how writing was invented. Nobody writes anything in Genesis. In Exodus, there it is: Ten Commandments written by God himself and a Torah written by Moses (who was, after all, schooled in all the arts of a sophisticated culture). Written words are a medium for the Word, but not, strictly speaking, the Word Himself. (Remember, Jesus never wrote anything—recorded for us, that is—except some mysterious words in the sand.)

While the slow and tortuous development of writing went on, God spoke—to Noah, Abraham, Jacob, finally Moses. With the alphabet in place, he instructed prophets to set things down, not for their own erudition and proof-texting, but to let his people know what he was like. Like all technologies, writing is a double-edged sword, though more subtle than most: by it we pass down vital knowledge, and by it we’re burdened with conceited pedagogues.

Writing is a tool, not a talisman.

Of course God knows that. Knowledge is a means, not an end. Writing is a tool, not a talisman. It sets us free from immediate practical application and the limits of an individual mind, creates a place for the expression of ideas in a world of “things.” It also makes us think we know more than we actually do, when what it’s actually doing is setting the table for genuine knowledge. God doesn’t need it; his words endure even when no on

e listens to them. But our words are airy and fleeting. Like rain, they fall and evaporate on the heads of our hearers. Good words can bless, and evil words can hurt, but that depends on who hears them and what frame of mind they’re in.

Writing is our one shot at making our words endure past the hearing. But the Pharaoh’s words to Theuth—actually Socrates’ words—hold just as true today: reading and understanding the content represented by a pattern of words on a page makes us think we know the content. We don’t really know anything unless we live it out. That’s why the Bible puts such importance on doing: “Be doers of the word, and not hearers [or readers] only.” “He who hears my words and does them is like a man who built his house on a rock.”

Writing is a tremendous gift, no question. I make my living by it. Like all gifts, though, it’s not to be worshiped or exalted for its own sake, only for how it brings us closer to God.

August 17, 2018August 13, 2018

Why Time?

The whole creation project hangs on it. For anything to be created, there has to be the possibility of it not being created. Anything that “comes to be” must come to be in time. God is not an exception because he is automatically excluded; he doesn’t “come” to be; he just is. Even describing him as eternal, as the classic confessions do, is inadequate. Eternity has direction; it always goes forward (for everything except God), and going forward requires a sense of time. Before creation, no time, though our minds are not able to grasp it. We can’t even speak theoretically of it, without words like before, when, pre-, post-, or during barging into the conversation—try it. We have to take God’s timelessness on faith because there’s no other way to take it, and yet no other assumption is possible. His first creation was time. Then imperishable spirits, then perishable matter.

He could have stopped with angels, with countless multitudes spun from his glory, giving back his praises, alive in endless bliss.

So why didn’t he? Why does his Spirit hover at this turning called “the beginning,” brooding over darkness? Why does the word come: “Let there be light”? (Especially from one who already is light?)

How about this: He wants to tell a story.

To time he adds space: three actual dimensions to hold actual objects. The first objects are foundational: earth and sky. From there he builds up to relational and consequences and progress—things stir, grow, feed, reproduce—die? (Maybe not yet.) A fabric of cause-and-effect covers the earth like a mat. Sun meets bud—more flowers. Root meets earth—more grass. Bull meets heifer—you get the idea. What’s needed now is a willful being who will make real choices with real consequences, who will act and be acted upon, whose actions will form a coherent narrative with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

We call that a story.

Someone told me once, God loves a good story. Don’t we all?

Some theologians speculate that Satan did not fall until after the creation of humans. He rebelled not because of a desire to usurp the throne, but because of revulsion at being expected to serve these puny beings. Humans were the prime cause of his defection, not the Almighty. I don’t know if that’s true–Isaiah 14:12 suggests there’s more to it. But it’s an interesting thought: what if Satan didn’t become part of the story until there was a story? Then he assumed an antagonist role, infiltrated earth, told the biggest whopper of all time and bound himself to the consequences. What if?

One common complaint about God—if he’s just up there somewhere, entertaining himself with our misfortunes like some Game of Thrones fan, then I want nothing to do with him. But to say he loves a good story doesn’t mean we are a mere diversion. It means that Story itself is far more significant than we ever thought, a grand sweeping narrative that is as much for us as it is for him. It shapes us, makes us, and in the next life it will amaze us forever.

And it all began with Let there be . . . Which may be another way of saying, Once upon a time . . .

August 3, 2018August 3, 2018

Take Their Place–or Take YOUR Place?

Here’s a little vignette from higher education: In the surgical theater of one of the teaching hospitals at Harvard medical school, several portraits of prominent physicians will be removed from their current grouping and placed elsewhere. The decision is more political (for lack of a better word) than aesthetic. The docs are white and male, and all that massed masculine whiteness is intimidating to women. Not that any female residents have complained; it seems to be an ideological decision. Image result for Harvard medical school teaching hospital portraits removed

The men so honored are described as pioneers of medicine, going back to the days when the profession was all but exclusively male. There were reasons for that, besides discrimination. Discrimination certainly existed–most of these men were only a generation removed from a time when women were considered less rational, intelligent, stable, and hardy than men. But practically speaking, only a hundred years ago it would have been hard to be married (as most women were) and a full-time physician. It would have been impossible to bear and raise children (as most women did) and work as a full-time physician. One requirement of pioneering is being first to show up for it.

Now many more women are involved in medicine because they can be. They can even be pioneers. The way to encourage them is not to remove the old pioneers from places they earned, but to encourage new ones to take their own places. There’s more than one way to look at an assembly of faces that seem to be too much of one color or sex. You can see those white-coated authority figures, however pleasant they appear, as old curmudgeons keeping you down–even if many of them are currently six feet under. Or you can see them as leading the way. For you. The former is solipsistic and limiting: history really isn’t about you, sister. The latter is inspirational and challenging–you go, girl! That surgical procedure developed by Dr. X, that tool designed by Dr. Y, sets you up for taking the next step forward.

The main hallway of my local hospital is lined with photos of the resident physicians. Most of them are white and male, but more and more women are taking their places among them. That will continue, and the pioneering business will continue as well–but not by stomping old pioneers out of memory.

July 27, 2018

Who Needs Air Conditioning?

Seen on the Federalist website: “I Gave up Air Conditioning this Summer to Live within My Means. America Should Try That.”

Good for you, pal. He’s in his twenties, vigorous and healthy and feeling great after a camping trip during which temps got down in the forties at night and high eighties during the day. I’m in my sixties and I just got back from a camping trip during which it got no cooler than 73 with something like 100% humidity, and I feel pretty good, too. (Did you catch the discernable trace of conservative virtue-signaling?)

I could do without A/C if I had to. We did do without it for years, partly for economy’s sake. I’ve spent summers in Texas without A/C—all of them, while growing up, and one while I was pregnant. We’ve lived through summers in Tennessee and Kansas and rural Missouri without it, sweating out a few uncomfortable nights and very long afternoons. Survival takes some strategic planning, such as

Put a couple of feet of insulation in the attic, along with an attic fan.
After sundown, turn on the attic fan and open the windows. In the morning, turn off the fan, shut the windows and pull down the shades.
Fill up a one-to-two-gallon thermos jug with ice and cold water in the morning and drink from it during the day to save the fridge.
If you bake or can (I used to do both), wait until the attic fan is on You’ll be up late, but that will give you an excuse to sleep late.
Use your outdoor grill for some of your cooking and a toaster oven, electric skillet, or hot plate for the rest, plugged into the electric socket on the porch.
Don’t use your drier—put up a clothesline.
Do most of your outside work in the morning and save indoor sedentary tasks for the afternoon, under the ceiling fan with bottomless ice tea.
Adjust. Your body is made for it.

Though grateful for the A/C now—mostly—I still kind of dread the day in late spring when it goes on, because it won’t go off until early fall. That groan when it kicks on, the steady rumble while it’s going, the barrier that blocks the summer night and fresh air, the nervous rattle of loose objects on the stove—I don’t like any of that. I don’t like the dependency. I don’t like being boxed.

These are personal preferences, and maybe some pokes at first-world guilt. At first glance, Air Conditioning appears to be one of the few technologies with almost no downside. The title of an American Heritage article from 1984, “How Air Conditioning Changed Everything,” is only a slight exaggeration. A/C made Florida and Las Vegas possible (a mixed blessing?), along with summer movie blockbusters, indoor sleeping, and year-long factory production. It leveraged hospital deaths and ameliorated tropical diseases.

But it also created isolation and dependency. We no longer get to know our neighbors by strolling at dusk and stopping to chat at the porch or stoop. And when the grid shuts down it can be devastating. Does anybody remember the Chicago heat wave of 1995? Most of the 700+ deaths were due to older people “air conditioned” to stay inside, and so accustomed to confinement they were afraid to go out. With the benefit of life-changing tech, we forget how to cope, and we forget a little more with each succeeding generation. I can survive with A/C but not without electrical power. My kids in Clark County, Nevada, would be seriously threatened is their A/C went out, but they could get by without their smartphones. Will my grandchildren be able to cope without their phones? Maybe, but research about phone addition indicates it might not be easy.

Technology gives and it takes away, the saying goes. As the pinnacle lifts us higher from earth and its earthy problems and joys, I have to wonder if we’re jacking ourselves up for a big fall.

July 20, 2018July 21, 2018

Should I Expect Thanks?

UPDATE: Hey, Science backs me up! “You Should Actually Send That Thank-You Note You’ve Been Meaning to Write.”

Here’s what I’m seeing more and more, even among young, solid, sound Christian young people (and young people edging toward middle-age): Christmas is coming, or a birthday, or graduation. I sound them out on what they might like, or ask someone who should know. I research gifts and plot how to pay for them. I might even make something. I scrape together the money, buy the gift, wrap it, send it. And I get no word in reply.

Sometimes I ask, did you get the present I sent? Sometimes packages get lost, or emails bearing gift cards get buried. Usually the answer is, Oh yeah! Sorry, it slipped my mind. Thanks!

Sure; everybody forgets—I have forgotten to write that note or make that call myself, so I shouldn’t be pointing fingers. But I see my carelessness as a fault, whereas I’m not sure everybody does.

My question is, when something occupies my mind for a significant period, and takes an investment in time and money and (sometimes) presentation—doesn’t that deserve a piece of the recipient’s mind, a piece that doesn’t slip? Do I deserve thanks?

My Calvinist daemon shakes its head no; dangerous territory, to think I deserve anything. My natural self urges yes. Maybe there’s a compromise: I don’t deserve thanks. But . . .

Am I owed it? Like I would be owed a paycheck for contracted work? But gift-giving isn’t contracted; just the opposite. It’s to supposed to be without obligation.

Do I need it? Maybe closer to the truth, but not quite true. I would certainly like to know if the gift arrived, that it didn’t get lost in the mad rush to unwrap presents and that it was (somewhat? a little?) appreciated.

Should I expect it? Well . . . maybe, but expecting anything still sounds like strings attached: I do this for you, you’d better do something in return, even if it’s just a simple “thank you.” Not that we’re playing tit for tat, and don’t you hate it when people feel like they have give you something of equal value whenever you do anything for them? So expectation doesn’t quite fit either.

Could it be that a gift isn’t complete unless it’s received and acknowledged?

Maybe it’s like this: a gift isn’t complete unless it’s received and acknowledged. It’s still a gift, because of the giver, but something needs to come back to the giver for the circle to be closed. Otherwise all the questions are just hanging out there: Did you get it? Do you like it? Can you use it? A work of art is unfulfilled without an audience, an act of mercy must be received—even fixing a drain under the sink is pointless unless the sink is promptly used with gratitude (and the plumber is paid).

“It’s the thought that counts” works both ways.

Yes, we get busy and forgetful. But I wonder if thank-yous are even a thing for younger people—do they want thanks when they give? Or do their lives move too fast for either giving or receiving? If so, their lives move too fast, period.