COMMENTARY: In today’s world, computers not baseball provide life’s metaphors

c. 1997 Religion News Service (Tom Ehrich is an Episcopal priest in Winston-Salem, N.C., an author and former Wall Street Journal reporter. E-mail him at journey(at)interpath.com) UNDATED _ Pitchers and catchers have reported for spring training, heralding another year of baseball. But two words in an e-mail message proved to me that baseball is no […]

c. 1997 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is an Episcopal priest in Winston-Salem, N.C., an author and former Wall Street Journal reporter. E-mail him at journey(at)interpath.com)

UNDATED _ Pitchers and catchers have reported for spring training, heralding another year of baseball.


But two words in an e-mail message proved to me that baseball is no longer our national pastime.

An author in Ohio, pitching a book idea, said he was”beta-testing”it in a new workshop. Not”testing the catcher’s arm”or”swinging for the fences,”good metaphors from the world of baseball, but”beta-testing,”a way of testing computer software to find defects and difficulties.

Two generations ago, baseball was indeed our national pastime, perhaps even, as one avid writer rhapsodized, a metaphor for America.

The sport matched our yearnings. It promised an orderly universe, with carefully marked boundaries, precise geometry, enforceable rules that seemed eternal, players moving like a corps de ballet, and predictable folkways like spitting and booing the umpires.

It was a universe with heroes _ leaving home on a bold quest, longing to return safely _ and a righteous drama stirring not only our love of sport but also our loyalty to home.

The national metaphor of the moment, however, is no longer baseball. It’s computers.

As the millennial clock counts down, what could express our angst better than a super-fast machine that isn’t prepared to recognize the year 2000?

Computers give the promise of order _ with tiny lines embedded on wafers and the exact counting of bytes _ but the reality is chaos: fast-moving, unpredictable, beyond control, with no one setting rules.


Politicians trying to fix society through orderly world laws should sit at a computer help desk and observe experts scratching their heads and saying things like”That’s strange”and”Try turning it off and rebooting.” Moralists who want to tame our rebellious spirits should observe the impact of the Internet, a chaotic, anarchical medium with no boundaries, no rules, no security.

Legalists who think better rules will stop abortion or restrict sexuality should observe ordinary folks trying to skirt the system by buying books on the”secrets”of Windows 95 and thus defy Microsoft’s attempts to control the computer’s desktop.

Workers who have been downsized and cities that lost their steel mills don’t identify with a Connie Mack, who stayed around forever, but with WordPerfect, which dominated word processing but now, two acquisitions later, can barely give away its product.

A nation that elects non-heroes to national office fits nicely with an industry where stars flicker out and virtually no one seems larger than life. Apple founder Steve Jobs, the original garage-builder hero, got a second fifteen minutes of fame recently and no one noticed.

Like America itself, the computer world is both silly and bold. Its technical brilliance gets diverted into designing screen savers and frothy, over-hyped answers to questions no one is asking. But it also ventures brashly into possibilities the stodgy dismissed and changes for the better our capacity to embrace the real complexities of life.

Computers speak to our sense of vulnerability, too. With viruses,pornography, and credit-card scams lurking on the Internet, even my home office isn’t safe.


In a sense, computers are a world without illusion. You either can or cannot run one; inherited status means nothing. Everything changes; no more dressing grown men in knickers to stop time. A nimble mind counts for more than credentials or stylish attire.

In the same way that baseball once provided the metaphors for life _ including religious life _ and its challenges, now computers and computer language define the way in which challenges are understood.

Religious congregations face a hard choice: continue to offer the promise of order, or join arms with those in the pew who know the truth of disorder. Some congregations behave like baseball teams, with a powerful manager, a few players, and a lot of people watching. But growing, vibrant congregations are like a high-tech operation, with teamwork, constant skills training, broad participation and a yearning to venture, not just to survive.

As for God _ well, I doubt that God can be bound by either metaphor. But it does strike me that”beta-testing”is a good metaphor for life: We develop something, try it out, get feedback, try again, and eventually rest in the arms of God, ready to be”rebooted”and wiser for having”swung for the fences.” MJP END EHRICH

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