Something Old for Something New

Any time something comes to be so universally accepted that we take it as given, it might be time to take a step back and reconsider. I suggest that one such mindset we ought to challenge is that new is always improved. The "new" must be better some of the time or we would never adopt it, but ought we welcome with enthusiasm every thing available, simply because it's new?

In their book, Mindhacker, Evans and Evans point out:

We've heard it observed that as Western societies grow richer, with a higher level of technology and more leisure time, they tend to adopt hobbies that used to be considered tedious jobs, such as candlemaking. 

The Ghostbusters, re-imagined as Steampunk.

The more people are stuck with inevasible technology and suffocating connectability, the more they seem to crave a simpler time. Along this line of thought, the Steampunk movement is likely one of the largest world phenomena that you may not have heard of. It is driven by an obsession with Victorian-era technology to produce modern solutions, and is in some way a colorful protest against the seemingly inexorable advance of modern technology. When you see a reignited love for old materials like brass, copper wood, glass, and ornate engravings, you are seeing an impact of this mindset. Even the great thinkers who launched what would become the Renaissance were obsessed with classical Greek poets and philosophers. "Ad fontes!" they would say. "Back to the original sources!"

On a personal note, I have become a devoted practitioner of bullet journaling as a way to organize myself, and have made a deliberate effort to reduce my own dependence on technology for productivity where possible. If you want to have your mind messed with a bit, click around on this collection of links about why paper is still a superior medium to any other option.

This sort of inclination can also inform our faith. Because publishers need to sell books and because authors desire to speak and be heard, there will always be people trying to say something new about God. Some of these things will be useful. But rather than chasing after whatever the newest thoughts are and accepting them uncritically, we will often be better served to chase after what is true, good, and beautiful, because these things will be valuable, regardless of their age. Some wise people have told me, "Always spend more time reading the Bible than reading about the Bible."

The prophet Jeremiah says in 6:16:

Thus says the Lord: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.

The true, good, and beautiful will sometimes be new, but even when they are old, they have a newness about them when experienced. The end result of chasing incessantly after any trend will be exhaustion. As you think about how you plan to live differently next year than you did this year, I want to encourage you to think about what it is that you are chasing. What is it that is making you exhausted? Must you really do all the things that you are doing and in the way that you are doing them?

If you're trying to grow spiritually, the truth is, the tools through which God shapes us are pretty much the same as they've been for thousands of years: steady practices of reading from Scripture, calming ourselves in God's presence and praying, practicing self-control, choosing to spend our energy on acts of kindness and mercy, etc. Before you try to find a new way to Google yourself into a better way of living, why not first consider the ancient paths, as Jeremiah calls them. They are less flashy than some other options and are generally more difficult than the other roads, but they've been found reliable paths by many generations before us, and they lead us to a place where we find rest for our souls.