Tuesday, March 18, 2008

birthday and communication

I would like to say a sincere thank you to all of those who contacted me yesterday and wished me happy birthday. I was reflecting on all the folks who contacted me yesterday and I have concluded that I am truly blessed to have folks who will go out of their way, stop what they are doing and give me a shout out on my birthday.

I have also been reflecting on all the different ways that I was contacted yesterday. I think I have counted seven different ways in which peopled contacted me yesterday. The ways were in person, by phone, by mail, by email, by text, by IMing me on my phone, and by facebook (which I have yet to ever log-on to since my loving wife created one for me). It's amazing that we have so many different forms of communication now. I recently finished the book "John Adams" written by David McCollough. I dove into this book for two different reasons. Number one the Lord told me to read it and number two I have always been intrigued about the men who have served this country at the highest level (in fact I have a desire to read biographies on all 43 men who have served us). In this book many things stood out to me, but one thing that absolutely intrigued me was the way in which communication happened in the late 1700's. The description of communication and the complications with the time it took to communicate is, in my opinion, one of the intriguing things that jump out of this book that beautifully describes that time frame.

During the late 1700's communication was really only done via two mediums. One was of course face to face communication and the other was via letter. There are some amazaing stories of peace negotiations over in France or England that literally took months to get that news back to the States. In fact there were major war-time decisions made in Philadelphia or Boston concerning a possible war with France or England that were made months after peace treaties were made between foreign officals and officals from the States. It would take months to get word, via letter, across the ocean. The communication problem was not just religated to large distances either. In fact there is another story that when John Adams died (at his home around Boston) that his son, John Quincy Adams then serving as the 6th president of the U.S, received word so late in Washington D.C. that he wasn't even able to get to the Boston area until a week or so after his Father's funeral.

Communication in today's society and time is an absolutely amazing thing. We now know of specific little stories of war and of world events literally minutes after they happen. I can now be contacted seven different ways by people simply wanting to wish me happy birthday. So what does all this mean. It would appear to be a huge benifit of the times we live in. But do you wonder if all the communication advances are simply so that we can get news faster or so that we can have different avenues to get messages to people, like happy birthday. Where is the Lord in all of this communication advance. Is there more of an obligation to communicate now or have we now relied on others to communicate to us about Him, thus surrendering our right and duty of personal communication with Him.

Hmm, it has me thinking.

1 comment:

Shayne said...

Scott,

Happy late birthday!!! I want you to know that I'm honored to know you and your beautiful family. Much love to you and yours.