I draw inspiration from vast and various sources. Several years ago, I experienced a sea change while watching a YouTube video that explained the difference between digital and analog. In my simple terms, “analog” means continuous flow, while “digital” means pulsed moments of “sampling”. The most common illustration of the difference, and one that is helpfully grounded in everyday experience, is that of a clock. An analog clock has hands that move in continuous motion around its face, visually offering you a “flow” of time (ignore the fact that there may incremental jumps due to the ratcheting of the clockworks and just go with me here—it’s mostly smooth motion to the observer). But a digital clock changes in leaps, pulsing forward to the next minute or hour with a “reading” that is stuck at the previous minute or hour until the next apparition. It is simply 1:10 until it is 1:11 on your digital clock (unless of course you have a digital stopwatch, but again, work with me).
Computers are digital. Binary code—the basis of all computerized languages and therefore the universal language of the planet--is simply a pulsing between two poles: on and off; open and closed (electrical gates); zero or one. Analog readings flow while digital readings bounce! When the analog human voice is digitized, millions of “samplings” of the sound (48,000 and upwards per second) are recorded. The current trend in audio technology is a reversion to analog to provide the “messy color” of the voice. But digital formatting is so incredibly efficient at data storage and noise reduction that it that it will always be a force in the recording industry, no matter how many folks go old school and buy vinyls.
These are general comparisons between analog and digital, but the YouTube video I mentioned took my imagination to another level with just one statement: “Billions of years ago, the universe went digital.” Boom! I was gone. To be honest, I don’t care much about the time it gave—that has never been the point for me. The pulse that had just burst upon my understanding had nothing to do with earth age, but everything to do a beginning that was digital—something out of nothing—a pulse out of silence—an ex nihilo entrance of life emerging from a void of random potential! “The universe went digital,” for me was tantamount to declaring that God said, “Let there be light…”
I have long meditated on the way the Creator created. First He “hovered”—incubated, communed with His own heart (and the fellowship of the Trinity)—then He spoke! The Hebrew word for “hover” summons the imagery of the flapping of bird wings, or the VIBRATION of anything that is percussive! (A percussionist has some ground to say, “In the beginning, God drummed…”) The Genesis account says that God hovered over the surface, which was described as “deeps” which were covered in “darkness”! Every artist who has ever stared at an empty canvas or writer that has been blinded by the empty page understands that incubation! There is so much heart-reality to be expressed and the inner dynamics of preparation are sometimes “tohu va bohu” (Hebrew for “formless and void”). But then comes the release, when the words come or the paint flies, or the song emerges. There is clearly a rhythm of “suddenlies” in the creative process—there are “bursty” moments where nothing turns into something in an instant. (And for the further comfort of the artists, I add an alternate translation of the pre-active state of tohu va bohu that is less gentle: “chaos and desolation”!)
God created the world in this digital way—a way that some of us for years have enjoyed summarizing as, “nothing, nothing, nothing--POW”! And, He really, really—not just in theory or for poetic significance—made us in His image! We, too, are junior creators! We are participators in the way hearts burst forth digitally into “art” (or anything)! We are following His lead in hovering over formless voids and incubating dreams until the moment of emergence! We are chaos theorists with flapping and fluttering inner butterflies of God-birthed desire that are waiting to manifest as storms on the other side of life!
I recently modified the summary statement, however, based on extensive research in the trenches of life. The digital way God works is often: “Nothing, nothing, nothing…deep nothing---POW!” There is often a “deep nothing” phase before the “pow,” and sadly, that is where many people walk away, for it is there that the analog progress-checking mechanisms go completely haywire! We may have reached détente with our sense of our own identity in the “nothing” stage: “I’m not that bad…I’m making some progress…enough to feel good about.” But at “deep nothing”--right before the burst of God-stuff--it is like being at Mach 0.999 in the first plane to break the sound barrier! Everything is shaking and every dial is going analog crazy, producing readings that point to disaster. When Chuck Yeager exceeded Mach One, he described the sensation as a “poke through Jell-O”. It was smooth the moment he was on the other side, but just before that POW (sonic boom), there was a whole, whole lot of shaking going on.
I recently met a worship leader who is legendary, not just for who he is in the large church that employs him, but also for his stature as a lover and practitioner of music in general, as well as a passionate advocate for the Kingdom potential of all the arts. One of the things that made me want to meet him was that a mutual friend had told me, “We often have to say to him, ‘Not now—it’s too much—give your inner world to us in smaller doses.’” Needless to say, I could identify, as that feeling pervades much of my mirroring in others. I filter my fractal-talk carefully not to overwhelm the dinner conversations! On the day of our meeting, we had a time constraint, and my dear, calm husband was to become to some degree the mediator of the conversation’s dynamics. It felt like the Dave Matthews song, “So Much To Say,” and both the intense ones in the room could have easily gone down several different trails and never returned had not the ever-facilitating Paul added his guidance.
Just last night, I was talking to my son about this amazing conversation and he asked me about how we packed so much in. I heard myself reply, “It was just digital!” I realized that we spoke in “code” if you will—Spirit-code where the pulses are strategically placed to maximize information-content and efficiency and reduce noise! I realized then that my artistic rhythm of incubation and release even informs my relationships! I sensed the “divine” nature of the appointment, so I had to go digital: There was no time for analog slowly infused connection decorated with small talk! This was a moment that years of hovering over the face of private inner “deeps” and sometimes darkness had prepared. Given a space of time with a like-minded “unique” Kingdom thinker, it was POW time! I knew how to place words like seeds, rather than describing whole trees! (It was just as creative as a burst of art—and I pause to think that we should all handle the relationships in our lives with more incubation and release, rather than analog continuous rapid-fire of thought!)
We use the word “flow” very glibly in Charismatic church circles and it does have merit, for there is a River and rivers do FLOW! BUT, flow is still analog. It is beautiful and life-giving and definitely to be bathed in, but it is also limited by our perception of time and space. If we would dare lose sight of our own bearings long enough to take in the pulses of the digitized lightenings of God, there would be a completely different level of “flow” that would open to our experience. To really know God and flow in His creative power, you must lose sight of your own measurements on a fairly regular basis and begin to feel comfortable now and then in the land of “deep nothing”.
In a great performance by Ed Harris as the iconoclastic painter, Jackson Pollock, there is a beautiful scene that illustrates this. Pollack had been commissioned to paint a huge mural—covering an entire wall. With the beautiful score by Jeff Beal in the background, we see Ed Harris sit and stare at the canvas—seemingly locked in a room alone with it—for what the film leads you to believe is literally DAYS. Then, in a moment, a perfectly choreographed change in the music shifts the scene from incubation to sudden release! Ed Harris (Jackson Pollock) leaps to his feet and begins what can only be described as a feverish flurry of motion that culminates with the huge wall-to-wall canvas covered completely with wildly applied paint in rapid fire. Pollack, who to my knowledge never claimed to know God, acted like one made in His image. He hovered over the face of the deep—the deep in the world and perhaps in himself—and then He exploded forth in a pulse of expression that endures to this day even beyond his years—and is visible even to analog observation!
Church is analog, but Kingdom is digital. We need the analog because people live and breathe—and hurt and cry—in this realm of continuous experience. But we are not limited to the analog. The space in between pulses is precious, too. The highly efficient realm of God—the Kingdom—is all around everywhere, waiting to be sampled a million times a minute. Analog—God showing up in real life—is beautiful, but never assume if you don’t see Him that He is not there. AND, if you are an artist—an apprentice in the school of the Master-Creator--don’t for one second devalue your digital incubation periods where darkness seems to be on the face of your inner waters. There are bursts within you that will change your world. God will lead you in your personalized version of, “Let there be light…” as you explode light to your sphere, your local cosmos, your new beginnings. Take heart in the deep nothing—the POW of God is on the way. Your world may be analog, but your Kingdom universe is DIGITAL!
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