Over recent weeks I’ve spoken with a number of friends who
have been upset by emails sent to them in both haste and anger. It’s easy done and perhaps we’ve all been guilty
of such a crime! We’ve written, or in
this case typed, a message that has given vent to our immediate feelings and
then pressed the ‘send’ button. Like
peeling a banana or squeezing out the toothpaste – there’s no way to put it back
again, no computer has yet been developed with an ‘unsend’ button.
Now I wasn’t exactly the rebellious sort at college but I did have one falling out with the Principal. He banned a group of us from holding a mid-day prayer meeting for South Africa during the headline grabbing days of apartheid. In a blaze of righteous, maybe even self-righteous, indignation we wrote a letter of complaint (this being the time when computers were as big as rooms rather than phone sized tablets). He called us in to see him and rather graciously said he would much rather we had come and talked with him face to face about the issue than receive our missive.
I now realise the wisdom of his counsel. Letters, and come to that emails, only give half the side of an account, argument or story. That’s even true of the epistles in the New Testament. Nothing beats a face to face encounter when a more rounded discussion can be developed.
Don’t get me wrong I love emails – even after a twenty four hour residential at Woking returning home this afternoon to find forty emails waiting for a response! This technology has made life so much easier and convenient. I suppose I regret the loss of pen and ink letter writing – but then I am something of a Luddite at heart! The downside of this wonderful technology is a rushed email, written too quickly and gratuitously by an angry correspondent.
So may God grant us the wisdom to know when not to press that ‘send’ button.
With best wishes,
Now I wasn’t exactly the rebellious sort at college but I did have one falling out with the Principal. He banned a group of us from holding a mid-day prayer meeting for South Africa during the headline grabbing days of apartheid. In a blaze of righteous, maybe even self-righteous, indignation we wrote a letter of complaint (this being the time when computers were as big as rooms rather than phone sized tablets). He called us in to see him and rather graciously said he would much rather we had come and talked with him face to face about the issue than receive our missive.
I now realise the wisdom of his counsel. Letters, and come to that emails, only give half the side of an account, argument or story. That’s even true of the epistles in the New Testament. Nothing beats a face to face encounter when a more rounded discussion can be developed.
Don’t get me wrong I love emails – even after a twenty four hour residential at Woking returning home this afternoon to find forty emails waiting for a response! This technology has made life so much easier and convenient. I suppose I regret the loss of pen and ink letter writing – but then I am something of a Luddite at heart! The downside of this wonderful technology is a rushed email, written too quickly and gratuitously by an angry correspondent.
So may God grant us the wisdom to know when not to press that ‘send’ button.
With best wishes,
Ian
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