Memory in an Age of Search

“Thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee.” That King James translation of Psalm 119:11 overrides any other translation. Scripture memory—KJV—was part of my childhood. I went to summer camp for a week because as a seven year old I memorized more verses than anyone else in my Sunday School class. Camp cost $23/week then. I also chose the context of this verse from Psalm 119 for the text of my senior sermon at Covenant Seminary. Psalm 119:9-16 is a joyful expression of a young man who loves the LORD and his words. I love the last verse of this section—“I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.” (ESV)

I have used modern language translations since 1968, but my childhood memories of Scripture are King James. Shifting from translation to translation gives the opportunity – not always fulfilled – of  rememorizing our own cannon of Bible verses. Today new translations seem to come out as often as new cars. In 1999 I started online devotions, including Bible reading. I found I was in transition from memory to search.

“Information on demand” is the promise of search engines – they remember me and select links they think I will find helpful. Try this: type in a search, and then compare results with someone else on a different computer.  Our search culture includes our mobile devices and phones. More than 50% of adults in the USA use smart phones. It is handy. Questions can be answered with a quick search. As someone who both enjoys and studies cyber culture—why raise questions about our culture shift from memory to search?

Yes, this is a much larger question than one blog posting.

I raise this question because God raises it, especially in the Psalms. Scripture was written in oral cultures. People memorized what they listened to as someone else read. What the KJV translates as “hide,” the ESV translates as “store.” The words are to be in our hearts so we do not forget them. We, with the author, can both delight in them and keep our way pure. Take the time to read Psalm 119 slowly. If you can, listen to it as a complete Psalm. It is both a celebration of God’s word and a description of a love for his words. We hide the words to delight in his words and to have them shape the heart we store them in so they become a light for our daily path and because we do not want to sin against the one we love who loved us first.

A few observations for this blog, not the final word.

First, in the search world of Google, Bing, You Tube and others the value of words and information is lost in the overwhelming number of “results.” Scripture is a gift of finite words in an image age. Scripture is God’s word, given through people in different ages, but God’s word. These words can be translated into the “hearth” language  to be stored in the heart to shape the heart, transform and renew the mind.

Second, without the memory of scripture we cannot delight in God’s word. Another time I will explore the differences between short and long term memory. Today I want to ask you, when was the last time you delighted in God’s word? The Psalmist does not want to forget God’s word. You can only forget what you have made a memory. One of the ways we delight in God’s word is through meditation (yes, another blog). Meditation is lost on a search culture because it is time consuming and not egocentric.

Third, from my childhood memory and that seminary sermon, the daily life application is “that I might not sin against thee.” This verse is not about performance or earning approval and acceptance. This is about delight and desire. Sin is personal—it is against the LORD, the you of this verse. Sin, in part, comes from forgetting God’s words, listening to other words that are not God’s word. Sin is foremost about a holy God who gave us his word so that we would not sin. The default choice should be, “listen to the word you have stored up and make the choice not to forget the word or the one who spoke it.”

Enjoy cyber culture and search as a consumer, missionary or tourist. Remember to create long term storage in your heart so you can delight in God’s word. 

Redemptive Conversations & The African Queen

Many of us have seen what seems to be unprecedented rain this year.  Our lakes and rivers have been full – many to the point of intervention – or even evacuation.  One of my favorite river movies is that classic, “The African Queen.”  Here are some thoughts on that amazing cruise.

The African Queen is one of the best exodus journey films ever made. This 1951 film starring Humphrey Bogart as Charlie, a riverboat captain, and Katharine Hepburn as Rose,  a spinster missionary who is in Africa ministering with her brother, is set in pre-war German East Africa in August/September 1914. The Germans burn a mission village, herding off the people, and Rose’s brother dies. This event sets up the unlikely alliance between Rose and Charlie as they take to a riverboat and seek freedom on the other side of a lake that is downstream – past a German Fort, a rapids, and a German gunboat. The river as a character is both destructive and redemptive in the film.

The power of the story is in the redemptive relationship between Rose and Charlie. Bogart and Hepburn, two powerful actors, make you want to believe people can change in the midst of the chaos of war and nature, that love between two, so different, strong willed and courageous people can happen.   The spinster English missionary’s faith is part of the reason she is so courageous and keeps her virtue. In the movie she does not lose her faith but can see Charlie as someone whom she needs for this journey and her/their mission to blow up the German gunboat. They are married before the Germans try to hang them. The overturned African Queen and her homemade torpedoes blow up the German boat, and the newly-married couple swims off to freedom.

The African Queen does what film often does best. It gives viewers two people with an historical setting of good and evil on a journey against the odds, united by a mission to overcome evil. The people find love on a shared journey, an exodus from evil oppression to a promised land across water. It is the dialogue between two actors at the height of their craft that makes this story believable and memorable. The dialogue makes the redemptive relationship work.

As a Christian, a military chaplain and pastor, I have seen redemptive conversations between people in hard, disappointing life events. I have had redemptive conversations in the valley of the shadow of death in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have had redemptive conversations with families who have lost loved ones and with children wounded and confused by their parents’ divorce. God gave us his word in his son and in the text that we can speak into the lives of the wounded and broken to bring salvation and courage to face the chaos and confusion so many face each day.

Unintended consequences: a lesson in cultural context

The world’s more regular involvement with our Middle Eastern neighbors outside our borders and with internationals within borders makes us aware of – I hope – the matter of cultural differences we are a part of.  I recently was put in mind of a lesson I learned head-on over 20 years ago.

In the summer of 1988 I found myself in the south of Egypt on an Air Force mission. One day, we were taken off base to tour the local tourist sights. As we set out for the famous Valley of the Kings and the Temple of Luxor, we had in hand the famous AF box lunch – sandwiches, fruit, chips, water and two cans of soda with the warning note, “Don’t drink the local water.” At lunchtime we ended up sitting in the shade of a building, eating and drinking that lunch.

I looked up at some point and a young girl I judged to be about five years old was standing in front of me. She had big brown eyes, a smile, and her hand was held out toward me. I am a father of three daughters.  What was I going to do? Then a flash of generosity hit me and I gave her my unopened soda. She smiled and left, walking up the sidewalk. Then, as I watched in horror, the unthinkable happened –a group of older boys, maybe 10 years old, jumped her, pushed her to the ground and took the soda from her. As I rose to help, one of our local minders said, “You cannot intervene, you cannot get involved. You cannot give a girl a gift except through her father.”  As a further rebuke, he continued, “Your gift put her in danger.”

Still shocked, saddened, and angry as we were on the bus ride back to our base, I worked to process what had happened. First, I justified my actions. I only wanted to give her something, and her hand was out, after all.  Second, those boys had no right to steal the soda and push her to the ground. Third, why did the minder do nothing about this obvious gross injustice?

It was a lesson with many more to follow about my cultural norms and expectations.  The guilt of “your gift put her in danger” was burned into my memory. My generosity did not trump the absolute of the local street – “You cannot give a gift to a girl except through her father.” My expectations, ego, and lack of understanding of the realities of the host culture harmed the little girl. My motives were meaningless. It did not matter what I thought; I had broken a local moral absolute that I never would have thought of on my own at that point of my life. I learned to ask more questions of minders and other local people. I began to study and reflect on my default assumptions and expectations. They were by no means universal.  I never wanted to hear again, “your gift put her in danger.”