THIS IS PART ONE OF A TWO PART SERIES ON THE AGE OF THE NOMAD.

THIS WEEK WE LOOK AT THE STATUS QUO.

NEXT TIME WE’LL TALK HOPE AND HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY NAVIGATE LIFE IN THIS NEW AGE.

 In my parents’ generation people pretty much stayed in one place. Most were born, grew up, married, had families, and died all within no more than a ten-to-twenty-mile radius.

My generation became more mobile. The development and continued improvement of both the automobile and the airplane made mobility easier. And with ease comes expectation.

My high school classmates and I couldn’t wait to get our driver’s licenses so we could go where we wanted, when we wanted. And, when that didn’t satisfy the urge to escape, explore, and discover, we couldn’t wait to “go off to college.”

The expectation was that we didn’t have to stay put. It was good to move, the culture demanded that we move, and most of us did. Leave for college, in-state or out. Get a job, wherever you can, often far from home. Then a transfer or a better job in another state or across the world. And we passed that expectation on to our children.

We are the transitional generations at the end of the current age in the West. More than any previous generation in the history of the world we are the generations who easily and readily, without much thought or consideration, move from place to place unforced.

I say unforced because there have been other generations that have moved long distances, but there was force behind those moves. War, famine, disease, and economic forces propelled most previous nomadic movements. The difference with us is that we became nomads by choice.

Maybe we are not nomads in the classical sense of the word, moving daily to find water or grazing for our flocks. But we are nomads in the sense that we are always looking for the “greener grass” and when we believe we’ve found it, we move on.

With the pandemic of 2020, technology and necessity converged. We could work from home. This both solidified presence at home and allowed for easier migration. I am sure there is a study somewhere that documents these trends but the same technology that allowed for both the reversal and exaggeration of nomadic trends is rapidly shifting Western culture into what I am beginning to call the Age of the Nomad.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that the tradition of the nomad is steeped in positive Biblical narrative; the patriarchs, Israel in the wilderness, Jabal, the Kenites, the Midianites, Kedar, Arabs, and the Recabites were all examples of biblical nomads. However, their movement was slow, measured, and, in many instances, forced by their connection to the God of the Universe.

Their slow travel ensured there was time to process; to ask questions and consider answers, not simply react to each change. And, as they moved, their systems of support and encouragement moved with them, helping them to adapt to challenges or disruptions as they were encountered.

There is much talk in some circles, even Christian ones, that we are at the end of the Modern Age and, in the process, transitioning to a new age yet to be defined. This transition is disruptive and challenging on many levels, but one thing is certain, this new age is an ever increasingly nomadic one. Not nomadic in the physical sense; in some ways, physical nomadism may be slowing down. However, we in the West are becoming more deeply nomadic at a heart level than most of us realize and at a pace at which our ancestors would be appalled.

It started primarily with Facebook.

Hardcopy books allow us to experience, through our God-given imagination, people and places we don’t know and have never met. However, where the written word can take days or weeks to traverse and process, with Facebook your experience of family, friends, and the world began to transition daily and, in many cases, hourly.

This ability to rapidly transition has continued to be enhanced over the last twenty+ years to allow us to travel farther, faster, more often, and with more people. TikTok, Instagram, X, YouTube, Virtual Reality, etc. We go to places and experience things at a pace unprecedented in human history. And now with AI, more of where we go doesn’t really exist.

These rapid transitions don’t allow our hearts and minds time to process the information and emotions we engage. The result being a subtle increasing sense of disquiet and unsettledness in our hearts.

Our heart being the place of deep contemplation and conviction, disquiet and unsettledness there is ripe for fear. And fear is the primary tool of our Enemy in his work of separation in our lives. Separation from God and from others. We saw how that played out globally during the 2020 Pandemic.

Disaster, revolt, war, protest, anger, hatred, frustration, malice and the ever-present sense of fear these bring are all available 24-7, literally, at your fingertips. We go from Texas floods to Gaza ambush to Ukrainian bombings in less than 60 seconds. And, in 60 seconds, the events we can experience will be completely different. Either different events or more information about previous events. Much of it contradicting the previous information.

Yes, we try to mix in a little humor and levity to help us justify and cope. Cat memes, the “Helper In The Car” reels, and once in a lifetime sports or entertainment moments are benign examples. But most of where we go and what we experience is tragedy because tragedy sells, and fear motivates.

Our hearts were never created to shift from tragedy to tragedy, conflict to conflict repeatedly, multiple times a day; much less, multiple times a minute. It’s the emotional and spiritual equivalent of the Mount Saint Helens eruption in our hearts. But it never ends, and we never give our hearts and minds time to recover, heal, and process. Think about it for a minute, we binge disaster, turmoil, grief, and disquiet and allow very little if any time to “digest” our food. The result being a really bad case of spiritual indigestion.  

Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) Paul tells us, “It is for freedom that Christ set you free.” (Galatians 5:1) David encourages us to find shelter and refuge in union with Almighty God (Psalm 91). But rest, freedom, and refuge must be chosen.

But instead of sending our roots down into the Love of God[1] – Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit – we have become increasingly nomadic. Boredom and addiction to “the need to know” have us seeking to experience more of the world faster and faster when what we need is peace, comfort, healing and redemption.

So, we scroll. We binge. Doing everything we can to confirm our place in the Age of the Nomad.

The good news is, there is a better way. There is an antidote. It is possible to find life and peace in the Age of the Nomad. It is available and it is simple. But you must choose it.

Godspeed!

[1] Ephesians 3:16-19

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THE TOV HEART: God's Design for a Life Rooted in What Matters Most 

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It is my hope and prayer that you will be blessed and challenged to look for more with God - Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit. No matter how much you think you have, there is always MORE! Godspeed!

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