[REFLECTION] The way in which we stay now

There was a time when even Manila had all these odd, vacant patches which have been both grasslands of swampy kangkungan, or daraanan ng riles ng tren.  I and my playmates used to chase dragonflies and catch beetles on the grassy patches, wheel ourselves on makeshift carts alongside the riles, or hop skip alongside the banks of the kangkungan. Right now, our youngsters are both out within the streets hustling or whoring for a residing, or cooped up in an digital world of TV and laptop video games. Hapless households construct precarious houses alongside da riles, and modern malls rise on what was once lush and muddy fields of kangkong inexperienced. Modernity has encounter us, and the social panorama is exhibiting its weird outcomes.

One of many extra apparent belongings you discover is that there’s a rising sameness within the way of life of our center courses with that of the remainder of the world, what they now name, the ‘world center class.’ 

There are the identical toys and issues – computer systems, beepers, laser discs, sensible telephones – and the identical stresses – coronary heart assaults at forty, marital failure, and that withered, gulay look that indicators a foul case of burnout, particularly amongst our millennials who’re well-paid cyberslaves within the world enterprise world. 

All of us work so onerous lately that we hardly see one another. And if we do, there’s actually solely time for good day and goodbye. Tipong wala nang oras para sa pa-chika-chika, and never even for tradition: going to the theater or a live performance has ceased to be well worth the time, what with the horrendous site visitors.

Our households at the moment are scattered about, within the US and Europe or out within the Arab desert. Entry to mass journey now signifies that not solely the ilustrados get to see the world, however maids with a one-way ticket to Hong Kong or Singapore, seamen on board cargo ships, development employees to Saudi Arabia and entertainer sorts ending up as Japayukis in Japan. 

Christmases and different such instances for getting collectively at the moment are generally forlorn affairs, with one or each mother and father away and two or three brothers and sisters sobbing away their media noche alone within the chilly winter darkish of London or New York. PLDT cashed in on the ache of this separation by telling us to ‘convey him residence on the phone.’ Small consolation, this. The reality is that you just can not hug a cherished one by way of Fb or the phone, or fax a handshake as an outdated commercial has stated.

Facet by facet with the velocity with which we’re capable of join by way of time and house is the rising sense of isolation and loneliness. The place as soon as we used to drop in on one another for small chitchat, ngayon gusto i-fax mo na lang. An rising variety of professionals now function from what has been referred to as the ‘digital cottage. Whereas this has the benefit of effectivity, particularly since site visitors now makes going anyplace fairly prohibitive, we lose out on group, that uncommon miracle of being within the presence of one another, and the place, we’re advised, ‘the Lord instructions the blessing’ (Psalm 133:3). 

Within the rare instances I handle to entertain at residence and get mates collectively, I discover that one or two would, with out that means to, monopolize the dialog with their woes, gushing forth like a bottle uncorked, for lack of an event the place such issues may very well be stated with nice freedom, enjoyable and abandon. 

It was once stated of Kierkegaard that he was condemned to an inside monologue as a result of there was nobody else in all Denmark that he may discuss to. Whereas most of us will not be fairly there but, we’re in peril of dropping our vaunted sense of group just by following the patterns by which the West has developed.

How are we to take a look at all this from a biblical perspective ?

Initially, there isn’t a must pillory know-how or trendy social life simply because it’s altering our time-honored methods. The massing of individuals in cities, the lightning velocity of technological advances, the brand new types of social group that come up out of those modifications — all these are a part of the incremental progress nascent in historical past. 

The truth that the Bible begins with a backyard and ends in a metropolis signifies that we anticipate issues to develop, to alter into ever-increasing complexity. Human tradition is a part of God’s design for the world; the expenditure of power and creativity in making new issues in order that life turns into simpler and higher for individuals is a mandate from God. (Genesis 1:28)

As a girl I’m actually grateful for the invention of the fridge, which frees me from having to go to the market on daily basis and spending an excessive amount of time curing meats or preserving and pickling fruit and veggies simply so that they final. It isn’t from knowledge, says Ecclesiastes, that we ask, “Why have been the previous days higher than these?” (Ecclesiastes 7:10). 

The previous or our conventional methods will not be precisely sacrosanct. There are good and unhealthy issues about custom, and generally, as within the controversy between Jesus and the Pharisees, it might turn into a stumbling block to new methods of realizing God. Israel acquired so caught with the ritual methods of Judaism that they killed the prophets or anyone who sings a brand new tune, for, as Jesus places it, “nobody after consuming outdated wine needs new, for he says, ‘The outdated is nice’. ” (Luke 5:38).

Additionally, it’s from the Romantic motion, not the Bible, that we get the thought of civilization as a corrupting affect. The sense that life is extra harmless or pristine out within the wilds originates from Rousseau’s ‘noble savage’, and the overall eager for the distant and the tough within the romantic creativeness. The bukid isn’t any nearer to grace than the town. Whereas a lot might be stated about simplicity and protecting our must the minimal in lately of environmental disaster, the state of nature isn’t any kinder than the concrete jungle. Strive sleeping out on a seashore on a moonlit evening and not using a mosquito internet.

Nonetheless, there are locations within the Scripture the place know-how or the tradition we construct round us turns into a approach of dominating individuals or making life bearable with out God.

Lamech, in his well-known ‘Music of the Sword,’ boasts that “I’ve slain a person for wounding me, a younger man for putting me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, actually Lamech seventy-sevenfold.” (Genesis 4:23-24). His son’s innovations out of iron has enabled Lamech to avenge himself out of all proportion to the offense. With sword in hand, it was potential, even together with his lesser energy, to multiply his capability for inflicting hurt. So he boasts to his wives about this new surprise toy that permits him to prevail over a youthful man.

Within the days of Saul and Jonathan, it was stated that neither sword nor spear may very well be discovered within the hand of any of their individuals, excepting them. The explanation was that no smith may very well be present in all of Israel, for the Philistines, by means of disarming them, had seen to it that the know-how is locked in opposition to them. (1 Samuel 13:19-23) This passage is an historic instance of what a technological edge can do to international locations which occur to lag behind in crucial areas of technical knowhow.

It’s value noting that it was the road of Cain which pioneered animal husbandry, know-how and the humanities. (Genesis 4:17-22) It was Cain who constructed the town, which, to the French sociologist Jacques Ellul, was his approach of self-defense and of constructing life bearable now that he has wandered away from God’s presence. This line of studying means that the town is one thing inherently rebellious, a synthetic atmosphere contrived to allow us to stay with a point of safety other than God. From Babel to Babylon, the thread that connects is that this proud, autonomous reliance on one’s personal assets and ingenuity.

Nonetheless, as with all issues that start with our fallenness, the town can and have to be redeemed. “Pray for this metropolis,” says Jeremiah to the exiles in Babylon, “search its welfare…. for in its welfare you will see its welfare.” (Jeremiah 29:7). The town, with all its stress and stress, ugly menace and horrible slums, is a spot of mercy. On the finish of time will probably be reworked, we’re advised, into a brand new Jerusalem the place the perfect of human tradition as we all know it’ll proceed not directly and endure. (Revelation 21:24-26)

So what does all this must do with the altering sample of our lives right this moment?

Properly, for one, it signifies that we shouldn’t get psychologically conservative every time all these flashy issues dropped at us by globalization come our approach. Allow us to be glad about all the brand new issues that join us to one another and make our lives simpler.

On the identical time, we have to watch that these new instruments don’t develop a logic of their very own, bidding us to prepare our life and work based on the patterns set by them. There may be nothing inevitable concerning the means of modernization. Japan got down to purchase and develop know-how based on the interior workings of its personal tradition, constructing on an extended historical past of metallurgy and communal solidarity. 

In our case, we have to ask: what sort of growth is greatest suited to our temperament as a individuals, with our fiesta tradition, our fairly flamboyant inventiveness and aptitude for improvisation and its corresponding aversion to standardization? Word that within the days when our jeepneys have been iconic shows of folks artwork, no two jeepneys have been precisely alike. We don’t like assembly-line uniformity.

To make certain, the blinding velocity with which issues change round us signifies that an increasing number of we will expertise distortions and cultural discontinuities. We have to be those that are capable of negotiate a continuity between the heritage of our previous and the novelty of the longer term. As somebody just lately put it, “We’re all launched into the journey of modernity; the query is whether or not we’re galley slaves or passengers with baggage who journey in hope.” – Rappler.com

Melba Padilla Maggay is a social anthropologist and president of Tradition Creatives and the Institute for Research in Asian Church and Tradition (ISACC).