People my age and older generally hate Social Media. Take almost any platform—Twitter, Tik Tok or, heaven forbid, Snapchat—and we go off the rails. We believe that the world is falling apart and Social Media is to blame, with two exceptions. The first is YouTube where we can watch Tucker Carlson. The second is Facebook where we can visit our grandchildren live and in person through FaceTime.
A recent study by the AARP confirmed my sense of FaceTime’s popularity among middle-aged and senior adults. It found that 38% of American grandparents use video chat to communicate with their grandchildren on a regular basis. Since there are 70 million grandparents in the country, that means a lot of us are FaceTiming our grandchildren as often as we can. The same AARP study claimed that American grandparents spend almost $180 billion a year on their grandchildren and that most grandparents believe their parenting skills are better than those of their children. Both findings are so obviously accurate that they lead me to take the rest of the survey seriously.
My wife and I have learned to love FaceTime over the last few years as both of our children choose military careers and the nomadic lifestyle that goes with it. Three of our grandchildren started out in California, presently live in Mississippi but soon will move to Texas. The other three grandchildren have been hauled across the world from North Carolina to Africa to Washington, DC. Through both of our childrens’ travels we’ve visited them and their children as often as possible, but occasional visits aren't the same as living within driving distance. Like most military parents, we grieve over how much of our grandchildrens’ lives we've missed.
FaceTime isn’t the perfect answer but it helps. An amazing technology, it allows real-time video interaction between family members no matter where they are. When grandparents can’t be with their grandchildren in person, FaceTime is the next best way to connect with them. In fact, it’s so useful that my wife and have have been able to overcome our aversion to the left-wing politics of the parent company in order to take advantage of its convenience. Where family is concerned I can tolerate almost anything.
To be sure, there are problems with Facebook. Multiple data breaches have exposed the personal information of tens of millions of users. Numerous studies have demonstrated its negative psychological impact, especially on children. Criminals have publicized their actions through it to gain a sick notoriety. Even the business model as a whole has been called into question since Facebook's profit margin comes in large measure from harvesting personal data and selling it to advertisers. But I'm confident that I'm speaking for grandparents everywhere when it comes to the upside. There’s nothing else like FaceTime for staying in touch with those you love.
I don't want to give the impression that a FaceTime visit with grandchildren is easy—far from it. Take the picture at the top for example. It gives the appearance that FaceTime visits are straightforward and fun. The child seems to be still and calm as he listens to his grandparents. He waves a friendly hand toward them on the screen. The impression is that the child and his grandparents are mannerly and gentle and having the kind of conversation that make both of them glad for the chance to spend some quality time together. But if those kinds of FaceTime conversations actually exist in the real world, I’ve never been a part of one. In fact, the difference between that picture and a genuine FaceTime call between grandparents and their grandchildren is as great as the difference between, say, watching Stephen Spielberg’s movie, “Twister” from the comfort of your living room chair and living through the chaos of the real thing.
When my wife and I FaceTime our oldest two granddaughters, it usually starts out as a pleasant experience. Finley, the oldest, is cool and collected and can talk intelligently about almost anything. She walks me and Pam through her third-grade school courses as though giving a guided tour. Her cousin Lydia is a year younger but can carry on the same kind of conversation. But our time with them isn’t a bed of roses because all the while their younger sisters are scheming to get in on the call. I see their heads popping in and out of the screen, waiting for the right moment to jump in, and can feel the tension rising.
Finally, the two younger girls can’t stand it any longer. Reilly, Finley’s four-year-old little sister, crashes the conversation with a breathless report on her Amercian Girl dolls and whatever scenario she’s most recently created for them, all in a river of words that I can barely keep up with. I try to pay attention but since I have no first-hand knowledge of American Girls, I’m not sure what she’s talking about. But it doesn’t matter because just hearing her voice and seeing her excitment as she talks is enough to make me happy.
On the other hand, Lydia’s younger sister, Brynn, sees the phone as an opportunity to exercise her personal autonomy. She seizes the phone from her mom as soon as she hears my name and holds it so close to her face that her nostrils appear as great dark holes--not a pleasant sight during cold season--then gives me a tour of her house since she apparently believes that I forget where she lives during the intervals between calls. Brynn does nothing at half speed so our tour isn't restful. She runs full-tilt, missing corners, bouncing off walls and crawling through the doggie door. She squeals, laughs and talks to herself and to my wife and me without stopping. Two or three times she falls down while holding onto the phone, making me even more dizzy than she seems to be. As she careens around the house I catch an occasional glimpse of her older sister watching TV or her mom calmly fixing dinner. Her behavior doesn't seem to bother them. Somtimes I feel like Alice fallen down the rabbit hole, only with more noise and greater confusion.
Then there are the two youngest grandchildren, both boys, who take lunacy to an entirely new level. If conversations with their older sisters resemble Alice in Wonderland, talking with Miles and Caleb is more like Star Wars’ Death Star, with destruction threatening at any moment. Three-year-old Miles sometimes steals his mother’s phone when she’s not looking and dials Pam and me—don’t ask me how—and talks with us pleasantly enough until he grows bored. Then anything can happen, from throwing the phone across the room to using it as a hammer for one of his construction projects. His younger cousin Caleb has a knack for long, conversations complete with appropriate gestures and expressions but entirely in a language of his own making. He often takes the phone after a brief wrestling match with his mom, looks me in the eye while the gears turn in his brain before unleashing a long series of syllables, words and sounds that resemble English but are in fact gibberish. Pam and I nod our heads and smile, not knowing what else to do.
When I've had all the fun I can handle, I hang up. But when I call next time I'm sure we'll pick up where we left off because FaceTiming with grandchildren never really ends. It’s more like a streaming conversation that occasionally takes breaks. I can’t imagine what life would be like without it.
FaceTime isn’t original to Facebook. Originally developed by Apple, the platform quickly proved ideal for Facebook and beginning in 2011 the two tech giants collaborated in making FaceTime the standard video conferencing software for Apple products. It’s reliable, convenient, easy to use and quickly became indispensable for everyone with a smart phone.
The name “FaceTime” is perfect because the smart phones and tablets that we grandparents use when we talk with our grandchildren focus more on their faces than anything else. And it’s the faces of our loved ones that we long to see. The expressions our grandchildren convey. The angles of their raised eyebrows when they think about something that’s said. The way they laugh at one of our corny jokes. Their serious appearance when trying to remember something they want to tell us. Looking off camera at their parents when their parents prompt them to share something with us. It’s the face that holds the key to knowledge, intimacy and love, even in the artifical environment of a handheld device at a great distance. As long as we can see their faces, our hearts are put at ease. In this world of separation and longing and careers that carry those nearest to us to distant places, if we can at least glimpse the faces of our beloved, then we can find some measure of peace.
The Bible speaks of faces in a way not too far distant from what I experience when I talk with my grandchildren. Of course, God is immaterial and doesn’t have physical features, so what do the Old Testament writers mean when they call on us to seek his face? They simply recognize that if our deepest longing is to be connected with the God who made us—and it is, since he created us with a spiritual DNA for that purpose—we will never be at peace until we learn to rest in his presence. To seek God’s face is to rest in his presence.
That’s why, for example, King David prays that he might seek and find the Lord’s face:
“Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud; be gracious to me and answer me! You have said, ‘Seek my face.’ My heart says to you, ‘Your face, Lord, do I seek.’” (Psalm 27:7-8)
That’s why God instructs Aaron the high priest to bless the Jewish people by pointing them to the face of God:
“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his face to you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26 NASB)
And when the anonymous writer of Psalm 105 calls on Israel to seek the Lord’s face, he’s simply reminding them that to rest in God’s presence is the only way to find peace:
“Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his face continually.” (Psalm 105:4 NASB)
I’m not trying to draw a parallel between FaceTime and the Bible’s invitation to seek God’s face, at least not directly. Instead, I’m trying to work out the spiritual implications of whatever impulse it is that drives our use of FaceTime (although I’m quite certain that FaceTime’s creators had no higher purpose in mind than making money). If the faces of our loved ones are so important that we can’t imagine life without viewing them on a regular basis, how much more important is it that we seek the face of God? If my life won’t flourish without seeing—if only through the technology offered by FaceTime—in person those people whom I love most in the world, then how can my soul flourish without being in the presence of the One who loves me more than I can imagine?
FaceTime is a blessing for grandparents and their grandchildren everywhere. But the more lasting blessing may be when we recognize that our longing to see the faces of our loved ones rests on the deeper, truer longing to see the face of God.
Great story Pastor Mike
Great idea Mike