Tis the season for taking a tree from the forest, bringing it into one’s home, then dressing it with lights, bells, angels, and other decorations. In reflecting on the season, I wonder if there is something similar that happens with us when it comes to looking at the things that we carry today to display the various seasons of our faith?

Such a thought came about when reading Fast Co Design’s article When Pixels Dominate Design, Your Hardware is the Brand. Besides the look back at how we have always used artifacts, or hardware, to be a placeholder for things of signifiance, there was also this look at the companies of today (Amazon, Apple, Google, etc.), which are making moves with their hardware, but doing so with a nod to design and symbolism that isn’t too much different than some of the discussions that the early church had towards iconagraphy and sacramentals:

…Those with an understanding of history will know that the power of symbolic objects is not new. Complex ideas such as religion, nationhood, and even love are often expressed through the use of objects to help make complicated and abstract ideas simpler to relate to. A cross stands for Christianity, a flag conveys national identity, and a wedding band represents a marriage.

Similarly, as tangible, real-world experiences increasingly become digital and virtual, industrial design, through the embodiment of meaning in concrete form, has reemerged as a critical component of a company’s success. Companies with vast digital ecosystems need simple, straightforward ways to express their brands, and it just so happens that physical devices, which serve both a functional and symbolic purpose, perform this task exceptionally well…

I wonder what happens when we begin realizing that we start associating more envoked emotions and appeals to objects than to the events or people who sparked them? Forget wondering, why not just look at the past thoughts of others?

…God prohibits an idol as much to be made as to be worshipped. In so far as the making what may be worshipped is the prior act, so far is the prohibition tomake (if the worship is unlawful) the prior prohibition. For this cause—the eradicating, namely, of the material of idolatry—the divine law proclaims, “Thou shalt make no idol;”¹⁷⁹ and by conjoining, “Nor a similitude of the things which are in the heaven, and which are in the earth, and which are in the sea,” has interdicted the servants of God from acts of that kind all the universe over. Enoch had preceded, predicting that “the demons, and the spirits of the angelic apostates,¹⁸⁰ would turn into idolatry⁶³ all the elements, all the garniture of the universe, all things contained in the heaven, in the sea, in the earth, that they might be consecrated as God, in opposition to God.” All things, therefore, does human error worship, except the Founder of all Himself.  The images of those things are idols; the consecration of the images is idolatry…

Or maybe such reflection isn’t all that needed at all. It has been very rare for me since leaving some of my faith roots in Roman Catholism to hear lengthy, and repentance-causing, discussions on the matter. I wonder what it would be for us to sit upon this intersection of faith and mobile – especially this season when we are so ready to gift, decorate, and admonish one another’s holiday dressings – and talk around what makes this life so wonderful, and if we are doing more to create our own than to enjoy the Creator’s.