I sat there just to get a few minutes away, and hope that a friend would swing past. I was looking to ask him a question about where he worked. But, in the space where I usually see him there was another gentleman. Similar in age, a bit more fit in appearance. He and I gathered some small talk and then his friend, another man show was slightly older, sat down. He was a friend of the first man, and they were having a connection time. I drew back into my mobile, but listened in on occasion.

The man whom I was looking for soon appeared. He sat down. He was a part of the connection group happening with the two guy already sat down. Being the common person between us, he introduced me to them and we began to talk. These guys were retired, they’d traveled to places and in means I’ve only heard in stories or seen in movies. There was a sense that they enjoyed their years, and look forward to those that come behind them finding their own trails.

At one point, the conversation turned back to technology. But, not mobiles and web, radios. They started in just talking about how they used to have to tune the radio to find a program. One guy looked at me and said, “you don’t know anything about that do you?” I do. I used to have fun turning the nobs, listening for whatever wasn’t too filled with static – and hopefully not a commercial. I found plenty of music that way. These guys weren’t talking about tuning the radio for music though – its was about finding those comics and dramas that sparked their imagination.

Then they started naming shows, The Shadow, and several others of which I’ve heard of, but never had that experience of sitting in a living room, with the family around, just to take in the story together. They talked about how the stories were just audible, just enough sound to make your mind create the scene. And the best stories, how they left you in some sense of suspense and surprise, yea, that was how they remembered having their imagination stroked. 

“But, not today,” the last gentleman who came in spoke. “Today, the TV does all the imagining for you. The pictures are made for you. And its so immersive. Now, there’s 3D…” He tailed off. I smiled. It was his generation that gave us these home and personal moving pictures, but now he was pushing back against it. Where it was helpful for connecting, it was detrimental for imagination. Without that imagination, there was no vision for living better. Where there was no vision for living better, there was so solid work ethic.

And so the conversation switched again, as it did several times in that hour or two that I sat there with them. These men, men how married and lost, fought in wars and strove for better lives in peace, were tuning my radio. I couldn’t be sure that I’d ever have their perspective towards the value of analog or “simpler” technologies. But, I could see how they appreciated moments enough to be sure that I got to hear what about the former media was good to hold onto, and not lose as we do move forward.

On Twitter recently, Gordon Marcy and I had a brief convo where I was asking about the value of broadcast communications (TV, radio, etc.) compared to participatory communications (web, mobile, and social). He alluded to the trust relationship that people have with broadcast communications compared to participatory. There’s not much tuning needed with those, there’s a reputation that’s assumed when those channels are used. But, with web, mobile, and social, there’s some tuning needed. People are still looking for what makes the channels necessary, valid, worthwhile. And if they are worthwhile, does that mean worth making things better for consumers or advertisers? Who’s imagination gets stroked to improve life around them?

It is a jump to say that web, social, and mobile are good enough. They are in some respects. But, when they take over the imagination or abiltiy for people to connect the dots themselves to see the depth and beauty of this faith, then maybe its not as valuable. Maybe, at that point it needs to be tuned a bit differently. And when it is, to be open to the signals coming as well as the signals going. We’d like to have this work for the Kingdom yes, but only if the Spirit compells, not if we wedge them into this.