For today’s apps on iPhone and Android, some of the more innovative programs utilize “augmented reality” meaning that you hold up your phone and you see through the camera, but in real-time information is added over it (kinda like the Terminator).
- For instance, Yelp identifies restaurants and gives starred reviews overlaid them as you are walking downtown.
- Google Goggles will auto-translate some signs and texts into English.
- Here’s a list of 37 ones on the iPhone alone and here’s a presentation in html format on its usage. Wild, huh?
I’ve always wondered if Jesus had an augmented reality set. Like when he encountered the woman at the well in john 4, he saw through her and knew her name and knew her past and knew her struggles and knew everything about her. If Jesus had a HUD, all that information would have popped up in a heads-up display describing her.
From the facebook feed, I ran across this video that shows what Christ’s augmented reality might be. The video is from a church so it is not as cinematic but once it hits the halfway mark things pick up. Stick with it, it will stick with you.
For me, the video is a reminder that we lack Jesus’ HUD and ability to augment reality so that he sees through people into their hearts. We lack that vision. But we do not lack in compassion that we can show each person so that regardless of what they are struggling with, they can experience a word or act of grace. We love out of our ignorance of the other person, not because we think they need it or want it. We love more to supplement our own deficiencies rather than treat or help others with theirs. Does that reversal make sense?
Thoughts?
“We love out of our ignorance of the other person, not because we think they need it or want it. We love more to supplement our own deficiencies rather than treat or help others with theirs.”
I have been thinking about this a lot lately. We must be on the same wavelength. What is my true motivation when I hand a sandwich to my homeless neighbor? Is it my white guilt? My guilt over being housed while my neighbor suffers in sub-freezing temperatures? I wonder what it is that motivates me to make and distribute food. It is probably a combination of my guilt and my Christian conviction. Yet a 5-minute conversation with these folks is not the same as true community that I experience with my housed fellow churchgoers. Can I ever truly know my neighbors who are less privileged than I?