For a knowledge junkie like me, the Christmas gift of the board game Trivial Pursuit from Uncle Gene and Aunt Sissie in 1984 might earn high rankings on my list of all-time memorable gifts. For years, earning those colored wedges from categories like entertainment or sports & leisure was an enjoyable way to engage in quality time with family and friends. However, the reason for remembering the specific year we received the present has more to do with experiencing the opportunity, as a teenager, to personally witness a Christian community come together to provide hospitality to a young woman in need.

Attempting to remember the details accurately may be a bit difficult, but the over-arching behavior modeled for this young heart is what is important. While on Christmas break in January of 1985, the Memphis-area recorded more than eight inches of snow, a record-breaking amount in my lifetime. As a result of this unprecedented weather event, a young woman driving her car back to college became stranded off Highway 51N. She managed to find a place to pull off the road, but with frozen wipers and no slowing of the snowfall, she became unable to continue traveling back to campus. Through a series of phone calls from church members in the area who lived along the highway between Memphis and Munford, it was determined she was not far from our house. Since this was pre-cellphone days, calls were made from houses in Memphis to those in Millington, and finally to us in Munford, trailing up the highway in efforts to locate her.

Once it was determined where she was in relationship to our house, dad walked up the highway to find her and bring her back to our house for shelter. For several days until the roads cleared, she stayed with us, playing numerous games of Trivial Pursuit to pass away the house-bound hours we were unaccustomed to experiencing. What I remember so distinctly from this encounter has to do with the receipt of a hand-written note where she mentions a verse from Matthew 25, “For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home.” For a teenager who had been raised memorizing scripture before she could write, this was a distinctive moment when I realized the connection between what I had been learning at home and church, and what it meant to live out a faith in real life. That’s IRL for any younger readers, and if you want to play Trivial Pursuit, you can select an avatar and play online, no board game needed.

In this journey to uncover what it means to cultivate the habits that lead to a flourishing life, whether using the wisdom of Scripture, the ancient Greek philosophers, or modern-day theologians, a recurrent theme emerges relating to the ideas of character development, spiritual formation, and living virtuously. And as I wrestle with how to best guide college students to flourish at life in the current digital age, it’s easy to, as Quentin Schultze shares in Habits of the High-Tech Heart, to wander “off the trail that leads to what Socrates called the ‘good life.’ I enjoy the Internet and other communication and information technologies, but I must admit that they do not satisfy my need for moral coherence and spiritual direction. If anything, such machines seem to divert my attention from the central concerns of life—such as love, gratitude, and responsibility—to relatively Trivial Pursuits with little enduring value.”

So, all of this leads to one of those “big questions” that are not so easily answered: How do we engage in the discipleship of Emerging Generations so that we are modeling for them the virtues and habits associated with living out a real life of faith rather than engaging in Trivial Pursuits that leave us empty and unfulfilled? Perhaps Schultze’s wisdom provides an answer, “Unless we cultivate virtuous character with as much energy and enthusiasm as we pursue cyber-technologies, our technological mindedness and habits will further unravel the moral fabric of society. Moreover, our concept of virtuous character must be tied to a coherent notion of the ‘good life’ rather than merely the efficient, effective, or successful life.”

As a teenager in the 1980s, I benefited greatly from parents and church members who modeled the virtuous character of hospitality. How have you experienced others practicing Godly, rather than Trivial, Pursuits? Please consider sharing in the comments below.

References:

Schultze, Q.J. (2002). Habits of the high-tech heart: Living virtuously in the information age. Baker Academic.