Words

Who else remembers "Auntie"?

My first glimpse of the internet in the late 1980's was using an online bulletin board by this name.

How things have changed since then. For example, to the best of my memory, our computer screen was about 6 inches and probably weighed more than my whole computer today. Back then we had no inkling of all we would do on a computer hooked up to the phone line (let alone a cell-phone beaming through thin air). It was just a novelty that we didn't take seriously as children. My cousins and I occasionally "logged on" to "post a comment" (terms I had not yet heard) on the bulletin board which anyone could read.

Our comments were mostly "Hi, Daniel" or a joke from our favorite, tattered joke book. Even that petered out long before the world-wide-web had any significant meaning.

But what has changed even more than the tech side is the appalling decline in human communications.

Oh, I know people are in touch more than ever now, though the methods of my childhood: snail-mail, telephone, and face-to-face (whatever that is in 2020?!) are on their way to extinction. It seems, so are English grammar and spelling.

Don't get me wrong. The internet is a compounded blessing to those of us who are ill and mostly home-bound for years. Being able to keep our off-site family daily updated with notes, quips, prayer requests, and photos is an unheard-of connection just a generation ago. Email is invaluable for keeping up with friends and conducting business. My sister can even start and run a whole business from home, thanks to the internet. And then being able to do our shopping from the couch - especially for specialty groceries - and having podcasts, audio books and Sunday sermons at our fingertips...

What concerns me most is the change in attitudes regarding human interaction. Have you noticed how less than 30 years online has drastically lowered standards in courtesy and decency? Kindness is the exception. Civility is rarely considered. You can say whatever you want to utter strangers and think nothing of tearing down and picking fights with friends and relatives. Even opinions are often couched in "fightin' words."

What a contrast to the list of standards we can read that George Washington set as his goal in his youth. No wonder he was so greatly respected and trusted and was such an effective leader for our country in times of bitter turmoil and war. [Side-note: I have read three biographies of Washington these years. Even the one "In Words of One Syllable" uses richer language than most writing now!]

What a greater contrast our online words are to the standards of relationships given by God, which were really the foundation of George Washington's character. 

For example:

Philippians 2:4
Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Ephesians 4:32
Be kind and compassionate... forgiving...

Psalm 19:14
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Philippians 4:8
Whatever is true...noble...right...pure...lovely... admirable...excellent...praiseworthy... think about such things.

Luke 6:45
...for out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks.

James 3:4-5
The tongue is like a small rudder turning a large ship, and...
How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!

(And to dig deeper, use a concordance to search the book of Proverbs for its many warnings about the power and use of the tongue.)

I cringe to think how an entire generation has now been raised with the internet's standards for using our words. How can we possibly raise the standard again? 

Only by looking to THE WORD. (John 1:1,14)

After typing all these words, I can only pray that this blog avoids the pitfall described by George MacDonald in A Quiet Neighborhood which described a person, "with an immense amount of mental inertia discharging itself in constant lingual activity about little nothings."