For from the greatness and beauty of created things
comes a corresponding perception of their Creator
Wisdom 13:5
But miserable, with their hopes set on dead things, are the men
who give the name "gods" to the works of men's hands,
gold and silver fashioned with skill,
and likenesses of animals,
or a useless stone, the work of an ancient hand.
Wisdom 13:10
Sometimes a novel experience, a pivot or turn can work to affirm a notion you’ve held, no matter how long you’ve held it. Having spent two days in a bustling metropolis has affirmed, for me, that I’m not cut out for it. Not nearly. Not hardly. This is a welcome confirmation, in a way, given that we’ve laid down roots in the quietude of a rural Eden.
The oppressive sense of isolation amidst an endless stream of faces throws me. I have a fascination with faces that probably isn’t that peculiar. Most of us are inclined to read the eyes, the tilt of the mouth, the tug of the brow. Trying to do that with an endless stream of data points drains me. There is the momentary novelty of the swarm, but once it passes, I’m at sea. Utterly at sea. It’s as though I don’t know what to do with the information, particularly when my own curious glance isn’t reciprocated.
I’m used to eye contact. Far more eye contact. For some reason, people who don’t live in large cities look at each other, often smile, nod, or even greet each other with an economical warmth that is close enough to familiarity so as to engender the very same sense of belonging you’d get from the presence of a loved one. Eye contact in the metropolis is of course, near impossible. Particularly on buses and trains. I thought the deathly immersion into the glow was already at comical proportions a few years back. The proliferation of bluetooth headphones seems only to have exacerbated the decline.
People once scrolled, read, texted, tapped. Now they’re bombarded with a literally endless barrage of brief, banal and hypnotic clips (they likely have a name, I don’t care, I’m calling them clips - have you heard of a clip, kids?). A quick succession of trite, colourful videos, all with their own peculiar gnosticism, seemingly created with the express intention of destroying any ability to focus on a single given concept, or text, or idea, for any worthwhile period of time. The cocoon only hardens, and once can sense that any attempt at a friendly glance, or smile, has deepening connotations of predation and disorder. It’s not you, it’s me.
And concrete, marble, steel and glass have their uses, granted - but for every surface? Every facade? I found myself so desperate for a patch of soil, a blade of grass or a leafy tree that I threw myself down an unruly growth of weeds breaking through the concrete, just to catch up with old friends. It was weird enough until a young lady with blue hair offered me a tub of glue and gestured, knowingly, to the footpath. I ran. But I did make eye contact and smile before I ran. Promise.
Everyone, everything seems to be hardening, closing in on itself, away from the other. Made in the image and likeness of God, I wonder what the implications are for our relationship with Him, with the Christ, God made man - who chose to enter into His own creation a couple of millennia before the maddening distraction and noise of the smartphone hit us. The manner in which he encountered the lost sheep of the tribe of Israel, embodied, present, healing, confronting, edifying. Making the blind see, the dumb speak, and the deaf hear. No thanks, we seem to say these days, eyes downcast, ears plugged, mouth curled into the sad tilt of the mildly entertained.
There is little room for delight, or encounter, or wonder and awe. Especially amidst the concrete, the glass and the steel. I acknowledge the underlying utilitarian nature of the city. The word ‘nature’ barely survives the sentence, no? But there is a function inherent in gathering so many in one place. The metropolis, the Babel. Together, alone, they can coalesce around whatever mechanical corpse they might wish to animate. Now, I’m becoming somewhat cruel, but I am a victim, turned, I assure you, but the seeming emptiness of the place. I am lost in it, adrift, hence I lash out.
Before I know it, I’ll be staring down a goat in a paddock, stinking, belligerent, but alive, and reminding me, with a toddler wrapped around my leg and the morning sun shining down on us all, that I’m alive too.