Skeuomorphism - A danger you can't see!

There is something comforting in the familiar, and for most of us we love familiar places and tastes and even faces. Take technology as an example. For some reason technology companies have a relentless pursuit to bring out new devices with new features for new needs we didn't have a moment ago. And in this pursuit they change things. The TV remote has enough buttons to launch a space shuttle yet we can't find the mute button. Our phone has enough features to automate a small town but we can't find the answer button. 

However the clever companies realise our need for familiarity, so even in the midst of change they provide links to the past. A diary on your phone that looks like a leather bound book. Pages that curl as you turn them, a camera that clicks when you take a picture, a music player with digital knobs, and so on. They realise our need for familiarity in the new. A need to understand the new in the context of the old. This use of design features that are simply for form and not function is called skeuomorphism.

Yet while this is useful for us to make sense of the old, it limits our ability to fully utilize the new. Because although the links to the past are helpful they don't allow us to see the affordances of the new. For example new devices, unlike paper, are not limited to a page size. So the notion of reading a page and then flicking it to the left is a limit of the page size. However when we browse a webpage we scroll up, and the page can be any length, it does not matter. So by creating flipping pages in stead of scrolling pages we inhibit the opportunities of technology.

But God was using skeuomorphism many years before technology companies got into it. God gave us, in the old covenant, many skeuomorphic symbols for us to hang onto. The entire tabernacle and its contents were modeled on something the people understood - a home. It consisted of a table, candles, a seat etc. This helped the Israelites comprehend the incomprehensible - the dwelling and presence of God.

Yet this led the people to think they had contained and comprehended God. 

Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” (Jeremiah 7:4)

So God plainly warns us -

“However, the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says: “‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord. Or where will my resting place be? (Acts 7:48-49)

Just like with technology where the skeuomorphic gives understanding but limits functionality - so too with the spiritual. These symbols give understanding but limit our access to the true wonder and power of God.

It is therefore not surprising that in the new covenant Jesus does away with most of these symbols. For while they provide a crutch to move from the natural to the divine, it is only when we let go of them that we can begin to truly experience God.

For God is not defined by our limiting paradigms -

"For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:9)

We are told that our new way of worship is in the Spirit - "The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)

This is a place of faith, a place where we step into the unknown - away from our comforting symbols into the wonder of God's presence. Where we step away from the comprehensible to the incomprehensible. From the natural to the divine. From the limited to the eternal.

How does it work? What does it look like? These answers are not found in the limiting representation of words but in the limitless experience of the Spirit.

"But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. 12 And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us. When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means." (1 Corinthians 2:10-14)

And so we are called to let go. To let go of our limiting symbols, our restricting paradigms and step into the divine, the eternal, the astounding.

“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”—the things God has prepared for those who love him—these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:9-10)