The medium is the message

One of my singer-songwriter friends recently shared one of her new songs with us. 

It's gorgeous.

The lyrics are about looking around, and looking inward, and then looking at oneself with compassion and grace and forgiveness.

The music starts out slow, then picks up speed, and then weaves multiple tunes over and under one another - the rhythm and tune evoke the feelings of rumination, of understanding, and then illumination. 

Marshall McLuhan would have loved it. "The medium," my favourite Canadian philosopher said, "is the message."  

I love that phrase because it's so deliciously true.

The medium
is the message.

And it's not just an alliterative, cutesy phrase - it really is the way we receive information, its the way we learn and make sense and categorize things in our heads. 

The medium matters because it IS the message.

When someone yells at you, the message you're receiving is that they think you deserve to be yelled at. No matter what they're saying, you get the message.

When someone offers you a kind compliment in a joyful, warm manner, the message you receive is the warmth that they're offering. If they said something positive about you in a curt tone or snide voice, you would receive the message loud and clear that they hold you in disdain. The medium - the way they convey their message - is the message. 

And tonight when I was awash in shivers at the gorgeous confluence of music and lyrics, I was asking myself - why is this so right? Why does this touch my soul so deeply? And it was exactly that: the medium matched its message exquisitely.

And Jesus - 

He is the medium, and the message. 

God said "I am with you."

And dwelt among us. 

My heart reverberates with the joy and the beauty of it.

God with us. God with us. God with us. 

Merry Christmas, dear friends.
xo.