Changes or transitions have always evolved, and in the past we were
able to accommodate them without feeling threatened by having to abandon
old traditions or ways of thinking; however by the 1950s change exploded
into a geometric progression introducing a radically new world that
only those born in the past few decades can fathom or identify with.
As products of the technological society, the brains of this new generation
are wired in a different way than the rest of us, and trying to identify
with or approach them through our past conditioning is both futile
and counter productive.
As a result, perhaps because of a diminishing bottom line as the older
generations die off and the young are not around to contribute or
subscribe to their publications, churches and religious institutions
are scrambling to find ways to appeal to the young. Mostly they settle
for beating the old drum harder not realizing that the young listen
to a different drummer.
Whether we are aware of or feel threatened by our inability to attract
the young we have to face the fact that they are not the individuals
that our current systems are designed to teach. They are no longer
primarily products of our institutions but rather of our technology.
If we are tempted to think that technology has become some kind of
villain let us remember that God (infinite intelligence) created it
as well and when we look behind the surface we will see spiritual
implications in all the new inventions. As extensions of consciousness,
our nano-technological products are now making the three words we
traditionally associate with God a technological reality - omnipresence
(the ability to have a presence everywhere), omniscience (access to
all knowledge), and even omnipotence (unlimited power) possible for
everyone.
We can begin our leap into tomorrow if we can comprehend that a predominant
percentage of today’s young in America are the first generation
who have grown up with modern technology that literally operates as
extensions of their very being. Computers, the internet, E-mail, I-pods,
and cell phones are as much an integral part of their physical, psychological,
and even spiritual being as are their vital organs.
Whereas, we older generation valued and spent a significant amount
of our time reading with a book in hand, now, with hands gripping
I-pods, fingers on computers, eyes watching television, and hours
spent playing video games, for most, book time is out of the picture.
What reading time there is left takes place on the internet sitting
before the computer with the possibility of accessing infinite information
condensed into as few words as possible.
Presently, through technology fantasy has now been replaced by virtual
reality, and, as a result, the line between reality and virtual reality
has been obliterated. Because all reality is seen as virtual, the
consciousness that each example symbolizes is more significant than
literal fact or intellectual dissection.
What’s more, the now generation centers on the moment and instant
gratification. However, it would be a mistake to believe that instant
gratification means that they were just self indulgent. Ever faster
computer programs, instant E-mail, text messaging, immediate cellular
phone contacts, and ever more instant transportation satisfies their
ability and capacity to stay in the “now” and not linger
in the non-existent past or waste time thinking of the unpredictable
future.
In his illuminating article, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,
Marc Prensky outlines our basic problem and proposes a difference
that we of the older generation must now recognize, like it or not,
if we have the slightest hope of building a bridge to the future.
He sets it up by saying, “It is now clear that as a result of
this ubiquitous environment and the sheer volume of their interaction
with it, today’s students think and process information fundamentally
differently from their predecessors.”
Prensky, calls this digital generation Digital Natives. Having been
born into digital land they are at home in it. He calls those of us
who were not of that day Digital Immigrants. We may visit the digital
world, be fascinated by it, and involved in it to some extent, but
we will never be quite native to it. Just as we have heard that a
novelist may have his or her successful books translated into a foreign
language, it seldom happens that one can become successful writing
in a language that was not spoken in their home during their formative
years.
We, digital immigrants, who fumble around our technology punching
buttons until amazingly something works, need not despair and believe
we are obsolete and unnecessary. We have an important job ahead. Apart
from our helping financially to supply our digital natives with the
technologies that are integral to their wholeness, if we bridge the
gap by applying even a modicum of understanding as to how the new
brains function we can illicit their attention and reveal age old
truths in a way that they can and will accept.
To begin with we must realize digital natives have the ability to
cluster think, to multi-task without confusing issues. For instance,
I spoke to the youth of Unity at their annual conference a few years
ago. Addressing the subject of multi-dimensional living - of being
consciously aware that we exist at the physical dimension, the mental
level, the spiritual vibration, and a number of other dimensions as
well without jumbling them all together - I said that when I was a
child my mother wouldn’t let me listen to the radio at study
time. When I did, a young girl jumped up and said, “When I have
the stereo going and the TV on it frees up part of my mind so that
I can study.” As digital immigrants, our linear way of approaching
study, and everything else for that matter, makes her statement foreign
to us.
As my main interest is in finding meaningful ways to convey age old
spiritual truths that the young can identify with, similar to the
problem our educational institutions are facing, I have found three
significantly important areas for us to recognize and find answers
for.
First, the now generation will not accept long drawn out build-ups
to an actual experience, spiritual or otherwise. This means we must
begin by thinking of immediate ways that induce an experience of a
truth rather than an explanation of it. Perhaps that is why the churches
that do attract many young offer them a charismatic experience rather
than a lot of theological jargon.
The young will line up for hours to spend hundreds of dollars for
the latest technological games where they actually participate with
the images they receive. I am not belittling or denigrating the importance
of our beliefs when I say this, but if we can frame them in a challenging
game like and more personally involving fashion they might be more
readily accepted and contemplated.
Then too, I was fascinated by one such experiential example at the
Unity youth seminar. In order to create an experience that would break
down the gender gap, one evening the boys all came dressed like girls.
It was quite a shock to see a girl/boy with his arm around a girl/girl,
but it did the trick. Any experience that does away with anything
that smacks of racial, color, or sexual judgment is readily accepted
by most young today.
Though visible, the power and purpose of most technology lies in its
invisible nature and the digital age comes closer to giving the visible
and invisible equal status than we did before. In other words, ever
since society began visible results were more valued than their invisible
cause. The ends justified the means. It’s not the same today.
Having the ability to distinguish between cause and effect, the young
are capable of a greater honesty than in the past, and they spot hypocrisy
more readily than we did. If we older generation want to be listened
to we have to “be” what we “say” or shut up.
Coming from a place of oneness balanced with self-value, rather than
division, the young check out when they are denied their voice. When
feed back is encouraged and the instructor is willing to share their
own personal experiences as well there is a link-up with the instructor
and it opens the gate to mutual understanding.
However, of all the methods the one that is most needed in order to
close the gap between the past and the present is the need to re-language
old beliefs and truths. Until we take our text books, such as our
scriptures or our founding father’s writings, and translate
them into less formulistic language we won’t get to first base
in bringing youth back into the church or institutional fold. Oft
repeated spiritual platitudes are tuned off within a few words.
Take the most significant word in our vocabulary, “God,”
for instance. That word is so loaded with meanings that range from
A to Z, and is so commonly accepted as being something inaccessible
off in the clouds apart from that which is actually within each of
us that the second many digital natives see the word they turn off.
If in our conversations, our writings, and our attempts to communicate
we can, at least temporarily, replace the word God with what is stands
for subjectively rather than objectively, a less conditioned and more
impersonal meaning, they will more likely listen. If every time we
want to use the word we substitute “higher consciousness”
or “universal truth,” or other spiritually designed synonyms
then what we want to express becomes something they can personally
identify with.
This new generation is the product of the marriage of science and
spirit. As such, science and its spiritual wing, quantum mechanics,
has freed us of superstition. To the degree that we try to pass on
a supposedly faith based “God will do it” superstition
rather than the self-actualization Jesus implied when he said, “Your
faith hath made you whole,” we shut the door to future co-creation
with tomorrows leaders. As long as we teach that God is with us there
is a duality, but when we say, as Jesus did, that God is “in”
us or appearing “as” us, contradiction departs.
If we hope to share we, of the older generations, must look deep within
ourselves to weed out unintentional hypocrisy, walk our talk, and
offer what we have without any price tag. It’s a wonderful day.