My Tech-Wise LifeНамуна

We Can Live In Hope [by Andy]

  

Dear Amy,

Let’s do these final two days differently. I want to give you the very last word because I’ve skipped ahead, and the last word you have to say is so good. You’ve done such a great job of writing about some of the risks of technology without condemning it. I have no interest in condemning technology either. We just sought, and still seek, to keep it in its proper place.

So, if I had a fear to confess, it would be I worry that a lot of kids and adults will finish this week and breathe a sigh of relief that they don’t have to throw all their devices away—and not realize how hard it is to live the life you’ve begun to described. I worry that we underestimate how much technology is stealing from us and how challenging it is to get real life back.

I worry most of all, to be honest, that a lot of kids don’t know what they are missing—that they haven’t even once been on a mountain at sunrise, made a cake from scratch, played music on an instrument they practiced for years, or had a dinner by candlelight with their family. 

More deeply, I am afraid that our world, with its constantly glowing lights, never lets us see either how dark the world can get or how glorious it can be. That we live with so much noise we don’t know what silence sounds like, let alone that taking the time to be truly silent allows us to discover we are not alone but that Another is with us, is speaking to us (Job 33), and loves us.

I hope that a lot more people will join in being tech-wise. I actually dare to hope that a lot of kids who read this will be the ones to help their whole family, including their parents, move toward the life that really is life. It’s so easy to give up on one another, even in our families, and think we’ll never be more than we are. 

And now that I’ve confessed my fear that we’ll settle for less, let me say, too, I have hope that is much stronger than fear. The story of technology is not over—it’s just barely started. I think a lot of us are going to make very different choices than we did in the past. I think we all still have time to turn this story around.

And I’m glad we get to do it together.

Love, Dad

When is the last time you enjoyed silence?