iHope?

Disclaimer: This blog has never been overtly religious, with a point to include my friends who are not Christians.  Although, I've taken a more religious front lately, I still feel like I'm simply commenting on culture in general and I hope that you will continue to enjoy this blog with reflection on your own religious affiliation.

This morning I read an incredibly intriguing article which applauds and critiques Steve Job's insistence on providing technological hope despite the struggling economy and even in the midst of human falleness, flaunting the bitten apple as a logo(something which had never even occurred to me).

"But the genius of Steve Jobs has been to persuade us, at least for a little while, that cold comfort is enough. The world—at least the part of the world in our laptop bags and our pockets, the devices that display our unique lives to others and reflect them to ourselves—will get better. This is the sense in which the tired old cliché of "the Apple faithful" and the "cult of the Mac" is true. It is a religion of hope in a hopeless world, hope that your ordinary and mortal life can be elegant and meaningful, even if it will soon be dated, dusty, and discarded like a 2001 iPod." Andy Crouch at Christianity Today, "The Gospel of Steve Jobs"

I have to admit, that even though I refuse to think that my iphone gives me "hope", it does make me feel like I have a grasp on my existence(my calendar and email), connection to my family and any information in the palm of my hand.  Andy goes on to say, "A friend of mine says that human beings can live for forty days without food, four days without water, and four minutes without air. But we cannot live for four seconds without hope." Ironically, how long can we live without our devices?  What senses of false securities do we allow ourselves to take out of our laptops and smart-phones?  When was the last time we took comfort in knowing that God has control over our calenders and connects us with others?  When was the last time we hoped in God's promise to save us from a fallen world?  When was the last time we rested in the knowledge that God continues to reveal that which we could never find on the internet or in our email?  

Picture: my iphone placed on my snuggie, another one of my cherished false comforts.  Yes, a snuggie is merely a backwards robe, but when I wear this one, I feel like a snuggly little kitten.