The Way We Were

Deut. 29:4 “Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.”

The Way We Were

Do you remember the days where playgrounds were full of rambunctious kids playing? When new colorful equipment was being put into the park because the old stuff had gone the way of rust, wear and tear?

Nowadays the new heavy-duty plastic equipment sits there looking untouched and the parks are no longer filled with noisy children laughing and playing. The silence stills the beautiful surroundings of trees and benches.

The days of communicating with humans via mouth is now gone, we are now a world of cyber addicted beings. I see mothers in the park with strollers and only the toddlers know the excitement of the world spinning around them. Placing sand in their mouth or worse cat feces goes unnoticed because the mom’s are sitting on facebook with their I-phones texting, playing games or sharing pictures.

No the child doesn’t die, just like us, because he’s playing in dirt and mud, but he is being blatantly ignored and this is the generation we’re raising and facing. We no longer pass people on the street, exchange eye contact and smile. We no longer look up at the sky and drink in our beautiful surroundings.

Communication has gone cyber and with it we lose something along the way. When I eat in a restaurant, my first thought isn’t to take a picture and share it with the world; I’m there to eat. When I go swimming, my instinct tells me to swim, not take a selfie for all the world to see. When I’m driving and enjoying the scenery, my first thought isn’t oh let me share this with the cyber world, I more on the lines think, this is my private moment with God.

I’m waiting for the day that not even the church services are private. Click, hey look at me, I’m here praising God. Wait, how did you think of the cyber world while you were praising God? Were you really into the moment of God’s presence so much that you stop and connect virtually? Before and after church we feel the need to connect virtually so as to inform friends, family or total strangers of our whereabouts and goings on.

Even the marriage institution is taking a hit. The kids today don’t understand what a sacred vow is but they jump into marriage in a technological burst expecting the relationship to thrive via text messages, Pinterest, YouTube, and any other form of social connection. We have disconnected from verbal communication.

People have now invited the social world to breakfast, dinner, vacation, and the movies and even to their church. Nothing is sacred anymore. We crave attention, popularity, and being in the know and one day without the connection causes the world to come to a stop, or so it seems. Are we that gullible of a species? Are we so into other people’s business that ours falters and sheds like flaky skin? You do know that once we shed our skin, we can never get it back, right?

Marriages crumble; friendships are shattered, lives are peeled away in layers and we have turned into an era of the cyborg generation. I myself am guilty of only peeking into the social world to see what everyone else is sharing. I sit quietly scanning the pages of how everyone has a really drama-filled exciting life and compare it to my boring mundane life. I have never texted while driving, shoot I’m hard pressed to even learn how to text. I don’t drive and click pictures and surely I don’t click pictures of moments that should be private to share with the world that is more than likely peeking in on me.

Then again, I’m so uninteresting and not part of the cyborg family that they pass me over like a pebble in the road. A pebble is not very interesting when you have mountains surrounding you, now is it?

Me, I like to go outside and dig in the soil. I like to tend my garden, pull weeds and nurture the flowers to full bloom. I’m different from the people in the cyber world. I’m a naked mannequin standing in the window of the fancy dressed ones, people pass and giggle at the exposure of my bold nudity while they hurry up and snap a picture of the more fancy dressed (or undressed) and dolled up mannequins and share it with their cyborg family.

I remember running barefoot down the city streets, playing in the playground and getting dirty, holding a book in my hand and enjoying the simple things in life that propelled me to where I am now, amid the cyborg’s of society blind to the more natural things in life.

I love to feel the wet grass between my toes, I love to smell a sweet scented rose, I love to love human beings but I have to remember, the way we were is the way we are no more.

Ezek. 12:2 “Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a rebellious house.”