Restless technology and eternal rest
Human innovation is transformed within God’s grander story
I recently had the privilege of writing for Love Is Moving, a young adult magazine by EFC (Evangelical Fellowship of Canada).
You can read it online here. Here’s how it starts:
Technology can seem to create more problems than it solves—always connected means always connected, never at rest. Chris Martin, author of The Wolf in Their Pockets, calls it the “hallway effect”—the pressure of being judged while walking down a hallway between classes—except now we feel the gaze of our peers everywhere, all the time.
Three related thoughts.
First, through this process, I was glad to have my work edited. My initial piece had a lot of unnecessary connective tissue, which on one hand made the article more clear in its thesis but on the other, assumed too little of the reader. I’m very thankful for the work of the editor, Ilana Reimer, as she taught me a lesson here that I hope will improve my future writing.
Second, I find reflecting upon life in heaven to be deeply enjoyable, moving, and meaningful. I think we’d all do well to think more about what heaven might be like even though we have limited biblical data to work from.
In one of C.S. Lewis’ science fiction novels, Perelandra, he describes a planet free from sin. Ransom, the main character, is described in the quote below as he first experiences the planet:
At the same moment he felt that he was being lifted. Up and up he soared till it seemed as if he must reach the burning dome of gold that hung above him instead of a sky. Then he was at a summit; but almost before his glance had taken in a huge valley that yawned beneath him—shining green like glass and marbled with streaks of scummy white—he was rushing down into that valley at perhaps thirty miles an hour.
And now he realised that there was a delicious coolness over every part of him except his head, that his feet rested on nothing, and that he had for some time been performing unconsciously the actions of a swimmer. He was riding the foamless swell of an ocean, fresh and cool after the fierce temperatures of [outer space], but warm by earthly standards—as warm as a shallow bay with sandy bottom in a sub-tropical climate.
As he rushed smoothly up the great convex hillside of the next wave he got a mouthful of the water. It was hardly at all flavoured with salt; it was drinkable—like fresh water and only, by an infinitesimal degree, less insipid. Though he had not been aware of thirst till now, his drink gave him a quite astonishing pleasure. It was almost like meeting Pleasure itself for the first time. He buried his flushed face in the green translucence, and when he withdrew it, found himself once more on the top of a wave.
I love it. There’s something soul-quenching about the doctrine of heaven.
Third, in thinking about heaven, vivid details are helpful but I worry about the ways they can mislead. When my child asks me, “Will there be mint chocolate chip ice cream in heaven?” I don’t think a simple, “Yes,” is accurate. But neither do I think it is accurate to say, “I don’t know,” without sharing what I do, in fact, know. Perhaps it’s better to say, “Yes it will, but it will be even better.” Or perhaps, “There will be ice cream without brain freeze, with chocolate chips that are more chocolatey than chocolate itself, and in fact, get this, we’ll get to enjoy it with Jesus.”
The Tarshish ships in Isaiah 60 may indicate that ships will be in heaven. But maybe that’s just a metaphor. I don’t know. It seems to me that the passages in Scripture which describe heaven (including those in Revelation), are mere shadows of the actuality believers will one day experience. It seems we ought to speak of everything good as shadows of heaven, shadows of God; the love will be more pure, the friendship more loyal, the food more tasty, and the technology, well, I am sure there will be technology, what can we say of it? It will be more true and more ordered towards an eternal telos — it will have capacities and limitations that enhance without subtracting from our essence and tech that will display, rather than displace, God’s glory.
For far too many moments in my life have had lesser thoughts than these. We’d all do well to think about heaven. We were made for it.
Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
Col: 3:2