Right now, in writing this web log, I am navigating through uncharted and unfamiliar seas. The fact is that I am a self-proclaimed techno hostile. I do not like modern technology of any kind! In my youth, our technology consisted of the rotary dial phone, electric typewriter and battery powered record player with a turntable. Imagine that! This was major for me. And in many ways I miss the technology of the past and wish it were still around. This is really more than nostalgia for me. Like Miniver Cheevy, maybe I also was “born too late.” Anyhow, what I am saying is that writing my first web log has not been easy. Quite frankly, it may be my first and last, because the tides within yet rage!
Some may ask, “If this is the case, then why are you writing now?” My reluctance to write has not succumbed to external pressures, political aspirations, self-promotion or even curiosity. The driving force behind this dramatic, atypical change in behavior on my part can be narrowed down to one word, “relationship.” The thought of collaborating with my son on this project was an opportunity I could not easily pass by and dismiss. Still, the deliberation has been long; hence the lengthy summation.
Perhaps a personal commentary on the picture of "Isaac Blessing Jacob" by Gustave Dore will shed more light on my slow coming, techno metamorphosis. Historically, exegetically and theologically the blessing is given to various interpretations and conclusions. But my reflection on the account is inspired by its general context. The blessing is part of the Pentateuch, the Law of Moses, the Torah or the first five books of the Old Testament.
A unifying term and theme in this body of literature is “generations” (Heb. toledot). Throughout these books the author mentions the phrase “these are the generations of” to introduce a shift in the story as well as God’s activity in the life of the people. Used in this manner generations referred to ancestors, those still alive and/or the not yet born, since the future of the nation on many occasions rested on the unborn. In so writing the author is claiming that life is about relationships and their continuity. For the sake of communicating and maintaining genuine relationships with others, one may bless the undeserving, forgive the guilty or attempt to do what is difficult and foreign, like write a web log.
We are living in a time where the nucleus of society, the family, is systematically under attack. It is a war that countless families are not only losing, but in many cases are not even fighting. As a nation, it is apparent that family relationships have gone from healthy cohesion to dysfunctional alienation in a very short period of time. This erosion continues with measurable speed and intensity. It is a relational declension that has moved us from village community, to extended family, to nuclear family, to single parent family and now, to alternative family without full regard for its negative impact on character, morality and the nature of relationships. During each shift society has tried to redefine the family based on some social science rationale consistent with and supportive of the dominant ethos.
As I see it, the toledot, together with this picture, are reminders that I am in constant relationship with my family and thus I should constantly bless my children and home. The language and practice described in the Pentateuch and throughout the Bible is one of community, which is incompatible with the radical individualism that informs and influences our families and relationships today. Therefore, I enter into this aspect of technology. And although I enter with many reservations, nonetheless I enter and write this web log in and for relationship with my son (and wife and daughter too).
