HOPE TRIUMPHS
LOST AND LONELY IN THE AGE OF COMMUNICATION
We are becoming a community of lonely and bored individuals. Image credit: ANDREA PIACQUADIO on Pexels.
By REVEREND TONY ZEKVELD
Seeing a lost and lonely generation breaks the heart. Yet, we hear all over that we live in the age of communication, the era of social media.
I would say dads and moms bear a big part of the responsibility for the loneliness and boredom of their own children.
Aside from the risks to physical health, the greater danger of cellular devices is the communication breakdown within families and the isolation it brings. Children see dad and mom on their devices, taking very little time to talk with them. They can be sitting at Tim Hortons or home at the dinner table; yet relationships, which are key to healthy human development, are not being nurtured and cultivated. The home looks more like a dry wilderness than a flourishing garden as God intends it.
Children’s peers in grade-school get a phone. Parents then give in to their children’s pressures for a cell phone. But that’s not loving them. The cell or iPad may seem like a useful baby-sitting device but hours are spent in isolation, alone, in a virtual or make-believe world. Then we wonder why our children become socially awkward and inept.
God created us to live in community. Families are the nurturing places for that. The God who made us is a relational Being and He created us in His image; to be relational beings, living together, serving together, working together for His glory. Sin deprives us of that. But Jesus saves and restores marriages and families to be what they should be – gardens.
A father recently shared with me that he has an empty basket by the door. When people come to visit, especially family, they are asked to deposit the cellular device into the basket. Everyone, adults and children sit around the table and talk. They pull out board games for children to compete with each other – children learn how to win, how to lose. Meanwhile they learn to grow up with happy relationships.
High school age is not too late for a son or daughter to get a cell-phone, and even then, use it as a phone to contact parents or guardian. If the home is a garden, that’s beautiful and healthy. Buses and coffee shops should become places of conversation again!
Maybe start with trying one day per week with no devices. Something to think about for the New Year.
If you want to talk more, feel free to phone or text Reverend Tony Zekveld (“call me Pastor Tony”) at Hope Centre at 416-740-0543. His email is hopecentre@primus.ca and website: www.hopecentrebrampton.com.