Everyday my 3-year old son and I partake of this ritual. As we sit at our cozy kitchen table and eat lunch together, he’ll say, “Mama, do you want to play ‘Santa Claus is comin’ to town’?”
Despite it being 80+ degrees outside, I say “sure.” Then I jump out of my chair, go over to the cassette player, and hit the play button for Brenda Lee’s Christmas Music tape. It’s a bit warped in places, but the joy that comes over my son when the song comes on sparks laughter and dance.
As with many things — money, food, alcohol, caffeine, art — I see technology as something neutral, acquiring only the power or meaning or significance granted to it. In my faith journey, I keep the question of how to live a simple and serene life before me. This question shapes how I spend my time. I have no TV. I spend very little time online with neither a Facebook nor Twitter account. I have never sent a text message (my ancient clamshell cell phone still works fine).
At the end of his second and third letters, the New Testament writer John says he has much more to say but would rather tell his recipients face to face then with paper and ink, “so that our joy may be complete” (2 John 12). The same joy that comes over my son at the kitchen table, I like to think.
