It seems safe to speculate December will see a record number of holiday e-mails nationwide. And while my sister who delivers mail for the U.S. Postal Service assures me she and her colleagues have noticed no dip in Christmas card volume, it wouldn’t surprise me if that happens, too. If not this year, then a few years down the road.
As someone who began his writing career when an electric typewriter was a luxury (one I didn’t have), it’s hard for me to find fault with today’s technology. So much of it is very, very good. And yet…
I can’t help noticing that — even as it can increase communication — it can foster isolation, too. We share more. But we talk less. And there’s no substitute for talking. There’s no replacing that personal touch.
That’s one of the great beauties of Christianity. One of its great strengths. You cannot be a practicing Roman Catholic and just “phone it in.” Or, to use a more modern idiom, just “send an e-mail.”
We humans need contact with one another. We need to rub shoulders. To look into eyes. To notice what, through body language, is said even as words aren’t spoken.
But more than that, we need to touch. To sooth. To console.
No doubt priests today are being asked the equivalent of what their predecessors were asked at the dawn of each new communications marvel. Could I just phone in my confession? Does watching a television Mass “count” for meeting a Sunday obligation?
The answer then — and the answer with regard to private “chat rooms” and live, streaming audio/video — is no. A sacrament demands presence. And we are a sacramental Church.
That doesn’t just mean that it’s through the Church that we receive the sacraments. It means that as members of that Church, we’re called on to be “sacramental.” To be signs — living, breathing, human signs — in the world. And, always, that’s best done, that’s most completely done, in person.
Jesus didn’t just take his message to the people, he took himself to them. He walked with them. Talked with them. Ate with them. (At times, causing others to cluck at such behavior because of whom he was walking, talking and eating with.)
More than that, he touched them and his touch brought healing. And they crowded in on him, wanting to touch him. To be healed by him.
As a teacher, as a rabbi, Jesus was very familiar with the Jewish scriptures. That’s our Old Testament. It was his contemporaries, his early followers, who penned the New. It seems obvious that delivering the message through the written word is good. It’s powerful. And, as we know, those who wrote the books of the Bible did so under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
But, as far as we know, Jesus didn’t write much of anything. The only reference from the Gospels is John 8:1-11. It’s the story of the woman caught in adultery. Asked for his recommendation, he stoops down and writes in the dirt for a moment. Then stands back up and answers, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” He drops back down and writes some more. One by one, beginning with elders, the people drift away and he speaks with the woman alone.
(What was he writing? Some early theologians suggested it had to do with Jeremiah 17:13: “Those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the Lord.” If that’s the case, it was an indirect reminder that the accusers weren’t snow white.)
Written words — now able to be recorded and transmitted digitally — are important. They can tell the Good News. In a pinch, when that’s all that’s available, they have to do.
But they alone can’t match those same words being coupled with that personal touch. With that tradition — that Tradition — that is also a part of the Church.
And they alone can’t match those same words being coupled with seeing those words lived out. The message of the Beatitude, for example, is most strongly delivered when one reads the words or hears the words and can also identify someone within the Church living those words. Someone they know. Someone they rub shoulders with. See face to face. Touch.
But that’s only half the story. We who have heard the Good News and are trying to live the Good News need other people to do that most effectively. Why? First, because our faith demands action. And, second, we learn best by doing.
It’s a simple human trait, whether the task is figuring out how to ride a bike or share Christian love. And it’s pretty much impossible to learn either via computer. Both demand going out in public and getting banged up a bit.
Phone, fax, mail and e-mail all have their place. None will ever replace our being there.
Not just at Christmas time, but year round, most often the greatest present we can give is our presence.
Bill Dodds’ latest books are Your One-Stop Guide to How Saints Are Made and Your One-Stop Guide to the Mass (Servant Publications); and 1440 Reasons to Quit Smoking: One for Every Minute of the Day and What You Don't Know About Retirement: A Funny Retirement Quiz (Meadowbrook Press). His website is http://www.BillDodds.com. You can email him at BillDodds@BillDodds.com.
