Welcome to the “Selfie” society!
You know what Selfies are, of course. Pictures people take of themselves. Usually using cellphones, although apparently you can buy accessories that let you hold a regular camera way out front to click your own picture.
My granddaughter borrowed my iPad for about ten minutes. She took twelve pictures of herself. All the same.
Click. “This is me.”
Joan and I used to chuckle at tourists who poured out of a bus to stand in front of some famous landmark to have their pictures taken. Usually by a member of their own party. Sometimes by a total stranger, to whom they entrusted several thousand dollars’ worth of camera and lenses.
We imagined the narrative of their slide show: “This is us, in front of Niagara Falls. You can just see the falls in the background. This is us at the White House. This is us at Yosemite….”
Click. “This is me.”

A cultural symbol
I had thought of selfies as an aberration until I read The Road to Character, by David Brooks. Brooks suggests that selfies are a symbol of a radically changed society.
Most of my generation grew up assuming that wisdom accumulated over time. One studied the ancient philosophers, the great writers, the famous scientists, to seek wisdom and truth. We were expected to follow in the footsteps of those who had gone before.
And so we inherited a moral code, a set of ethics, that focused on responsibility. Loyalty. Working your way up. Suppressing personal emotions and desires, in favour of the greater good.
Then things changed. As Brooks says, “Moral authority is no longer found in some objective good; it is found in each person’s unique original self.” Look deep within yourself to find your own ultimate truth.
Education subtly shifted its emphasis from moulding and training (from the Latin word “educare”) to drawing out (from a similar Latin word, “educere”) the abilities already there.
Click. “This is me. I’m fine.”

Spiritual but not religious
Most of us, Brooks says, assume that this shift started during the “hippie ‘70s”. He argues that it started in the 1950s and ‘60s -- while my generation was growing up. A series of best-selling books, from Dr. Spock to Norman Vincent Peale, urged people to reject repression in favour of free self-expression.
There were some positive results. As Brooks comments, “The shift… helped correct some deep social injustices. Many social groups, notably women, minorities, and the poor, had received messages of inferiority and humiliation. They were taught to think too lowly of themselves. The culture of self-esteem encouraged those groups…to raise their sights and aspirations.”
Click. “This is me. Get used to it.”
At the same time, a selfie culture set up the “spiritual but not religious” phenomenon. If truth is found within oneself, who needs need a religion burdened with traditional teachings?
The earlier moral codes required God to be out there somewhere, watching over you. Such a God had to be a separate being.
The selfie culture internalizes God. God is in me, in you.
Click. “This is God.”
I don’t agree with everything Brooks writes. I don’t want to go back to a distant God. But I think he nailed the selfie culture.
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Copyright © 2016 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.
        To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

A couple of readers suggested to me that my treatment of top-down and bottom-up patterns of change might be too arbitrary.

Isabel Gibson, for example, wrote, “We have complex views of how change is effected. We talk about leaders ‘running’ countries (and organizations) -- and while leaders can affect direction and help to effect change, they can't direct or control everything.
“We also talk about the butterfly effect, the ripple, the being-the-change you want to see in the world -- and while individuals, too, can affect direction and help to effect change, they can't direct or control everything.
“I wonder whether there are different kinds of change, some best handled top-down, others best generated bottom-up.”

Jane Wallbrown concurred with Isabel: “Top down or bottom up are the two established ways of getting change. It takes two different kinds of people. Both are needed. There are the revolutionaries that become outside of any system that upsets the apple cart. But once they have upset it, they can't seem to lead. Never works. It takes a top down kind of person to make the revolutionary gains work. The whole history of the world see-saws with this.”
Jane shared some examples from her life, and concluded, “So, Jim, my life has been a series of changing systems from below through the top. In the larger picture it takes revolutionaries outside the system. But from my life's experience, ordinary folks get systems changed from within, dealing with the top.
“I have ‘lived’ the feminist movement, which started about when I was in college. You could say that THAT movement was the larger outside-the-box revolutionary change that forced the ‘top’ people in my professional life to affect systemic change.”

Tom Watson remembered that “The United Church of Canada used to have its General Council offices at 85 St. Clair Avenue East in Toronto. The top floor was where the higher echelon, the Moderator and General Secretary, had their offices, and things worked progressively downwards. A number of people complained that was far too hierarchical. The church should model a more egalitarian approach to its affairs and what worse symbol could there possibly be than that office building! Well, as you know, we sold that building and moved. I think we only have three floors now. Surely hasn't made for any better (but maybe no worse) decision making. (In other words, no effect at all). And it surely hasn't stemmed the tide in continually dropping church membership.
“On another front...when John Galt founded Guelph, Ontario in 1827 he allocated the highest point in the centre of this newly founded town to the Roman Catholics as a compliment to his friend, Bishop Alexander Macdonell. On that site, in 1880, was built the Basilica of Our Lady Immaculate (commonly called Church of Our Lady). Still in existence today, 135 years later, is a city zoning bylaw stipulating that
1) clear sight lines to the Church of Our Lady must be ensured from all downtown core vantage points,
2) any communication tower or other structures must not obscure the view of the church,
3) no new buildings anywhere in Guelph can be higher in elevation than that church.
Attempts to change that bylaw have met with more than mild resistance!

Mary Blackburn wondered, “And how many of us spent years of Sunday School and Youth Group in the church basement? I have wondered what that said, and says, to our children and youth about how we value their presence.”

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PSALM PARAPHRASES

The lectionary gives me a choice of two psalms for this coming Sunday -- Psalm 146 and Psalm 30. David Brooks, in the column above, refers to the low self-esteem that our pre-Selfie culture encouraged women to have, so I thought this version of Psalm 30 might be fitting.

1   My God, O my God, what a gift you have given me!
2   I thought I was born a loser; 
you have given me self-esteem.
3   I used to let others speak for me; I let others think for me. 
I felt I was nothing. 
You have given me life.
4   I am not a faulty copy of anyone else, God. 
I am me. Thank you.
5, 7   Once I thought God despised me. 
But I have felt God's gentle hands lift me into the light.
8   I cried silently in the night, afraid to be heard. 
I stifled my own suffering. 
I thought I didn't matter.
9   I could have died -- but I was afraid no one would notice.
10   "Can anyone hear me?" I cried. "Does anyone care?"
11   And you heard me, God. 
You turned my rainclouds into rainbows; you stirred spices into the watery soup of my life.
12   I am done with self-abasement. 
I will delight in me and in you forever.

For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary, you can order my book Everyday Psalms from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.

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YOU SCRATCH MY BACK…
Ralph Milton has a new project, called Sing Hallelujah – the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca
Isabel Gibson's thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com
Wayne Irwin's "Churchweb Canada," an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>
Alva Wood's satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not particularly religious, but they are fun; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” – ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at twatson@sentex.net

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TECHNICAL STUFF

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