Email Free Fridays
The Week reports how many businesses are giving up emails once a week. Face to face tends to resolve conflicts and even mitigates the misinterpretations that happen over email.
On one hand email is fast - and effective especially for short answers. It's not great for writing long letters. I sometimes think emails can be anticlimactic, compared to handwritten notes. Checking my email has sometimes felt like an obsession.
They are also open to misinterpretation. We can send emails too hastily; we can use them to avoid conflict; to say things we don't mean to say. Positive things in emails become muted. Terrible things take on a life of their own.
To some extent, the issues in our communion are fostered (festered) by email. Face to face, on the other hand, and people change. They see the humanity in each other. They realize that words are not so simple. They can become forgiving. Or they can murder each other.
I've sent emails I've regretted. But it is in each other's faces we see holiness, we see vulnerability, and we see our humanity. And then we can see the consequences of our hatred, and perhaps be turned a little bit more toward love. Better to make the phone call, to take the time to see each other, to engage directly. Then, perhaps, good work can get done, and our humanity is restored.