Tending Joy

By Josh VonGunten


I threw a little bit of a fit recently. If you saw what happened, you just might call it a tantrum.


Here’s the situation…I was working on my laptop pushing pixels and had been at it for a few hours. I was nearing the end of a project and so close to hitting send when the unthinkable happened…my internet connection slowed and sputtered. The site I was working on saved my progress but wouldn’t load properly. My computer spewed various error messages. Momentum ground to a halt. I was temporarily stuck and unable to finish. I glanced at the clock and noticed I was running a few minutes past the time I had planned to finish by. Plus, I needed to move on. It was time for me to leave the desk and get to a meeting. I closed my eyes, grabbed my head, and moaned like a child being successfully rage baited. My interior world flooded with the flashing of red lights as my heart rate increased. I lost a grip on my patience and sense of perspective. 


I tried to load the site again and got nothing, which evoked some muttering and name calling. I think I called the website “trash” a few times out loud. Finally, in peak desperation I resorted to an early 90’s tactic by hitting the return key hard and repeatedly as if pure force might fix the problem. Anyone who has pounded the top of a Nintendo with their fist or slapped the side of a Zenith tv at full strength knows exactly what I’m talking about here. This is man vs. machine, a dark comedy starring my inner child played by an unhinged grown man with a wild look in his eyes. After a few minutes of failing to re-load the site I reluctantly embraced defeat, got up, and left my computer alone. A couple hours later I returned to find the site up and running again. I hit send and all was well.


Now before you get concerned, I will tell you this kind fit throwing is not normal for me.  At least not yet. On this occasion I was tired and worn down from a lack of sleep and a lot on my mind. I was not in a good place. However, legitimate excuses aside, the particular strand of frustration I was feeling was not new. Over the last few years or so, I have felt the rage building, slowly. In unplanned and scattered moments of delay I have been given a glimpse of something ominous at work within me. Whether it’s a website that won’t load, a streaming service that glitches, a wireless printer that won’t connect, or a blue tooth rodeo, the more I use technology, the more I increasingly expect it to work right now. To the extent that I experience technology as increasingly frictionless and highly controllable, I am annoyed by the slightest of delays.


Upon reflection, I am noticing a subtle yet powerful shaping force. Through better and better user experiences, I am less exposed to situations that require of me patience, surrender, and internal fortitude. I am being slowly and quietly shaped by the iphone in my hand to correlate what works with what works right now. Inside this logic, what is worthwhile is controllable and will give me the result I want right away. Waiting implies malfunction. Slow is a hassle.


Seeking an alternative take on technology, I recently watched a couple films that fall in the esoteric genre some call “slow cinema.” Paterson (2016) and Perfect Days (2023) are very different films in terms of setting and context, but strikingly similar in their artful exploration of what it might look like for an individual to deliberately stand outside of the logic of technology. In Paterson, Adam Driver plays a city bus driver in New Jersey who writes poetry. In Perfect Days, Koji Yakusho plays a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo who tends to plants and lives like a monk. These are portraits of two men finding contentment in utterly unglamorous, typically unwanted situations. Screens are notably absent from their homes and daily routines. Their days pulse with normalcy. Unlike most movies, these are not stories about people who work hard in order to rise up and escape what is slow, grinding, and tedious. Instead, they are learning to embrace it, to make a home within its neglected confines.


These films made a lasting impression upon me because they showed me something very important. Their critique of the formational speed of technology comes not so much through direct argument but through joy. I found myself drawn towards these people. Within their struggles they appeared not perfect or happy but deeply real, at ease, and alive. In both characters I received an intimate, granular look at how the slow craft of everyday creativity—the feel of pen and paper in hand, the sloshing of water carried to a potted plant, offer up a vision of joy found in what is slow, routine, and inefficient. Here slow processes, the kinds of things we might call a “hassle,” are what bring about serendipitous experiences of goodness. These films gently ask haunting questions about where and how the elusive prospect of joy might be found in modern societies which lure us into chasing hassle free living.


Joy as a critique of technology has become a guiding light for me these days. I’m in search of it. I find myself looking for it in the bright eyes of children who don’t have phones yet. I’m convinced it’s the only thing robust and nourishing enough to lead me away from the illusion that what I can control, that what works and gives me answers “right now,” is best. This summer this pursuit has led me to carve out a specific focus on the formational power of caring for plants. I’m seeking to rediscover what it means to be in relationship with God through the daily work of tending.


As I explore this territory, I’m finding that the core defining attributes of Christian spirituality—things like the beautiful grace, mercy, and patience we see in the life of Jesus, are not things that can be fully grasped or acquired in a classroom or on a screen. These are things we only start to get a feel for through direct exposure to people and processes that stretch us and slow us down. Ironically, it is through the gradual struggle of tending to something mysterious and out of our control that we eventually experience the deep joy of contentment. In this reversal of conventional wisdom, glitches, detours, and moments of delay are not malfunctions but opportunities to grow deeper and more patient.


In Harmut Rosa’s short book, The Uncontrollability of the World, the renowned sociologist persuasively argues that modern society is making people anxious and miserable by encouraging control and mastery over every aspect of life. He concludes that experiences of aliveness (what he calls resonance) only happen when we surrender to things outside of our control. This means spiritual practices like silence and prayer offer us the chance to receive the gift of recovering our humanity. Putting roots down in communities where proximity endures through inevitable seasons of annoyance provides the chance to cultivate depth of character. Settings and activities where we are vulnerable to surprises provide the best context for feeling alive. This also means we are most deeply fulfilled by gifts, by grace, not by achieving or acquiring.


Seeking direct exposure, I know of no better way to get a feel for Jesus’ invitation to abide in him (John 15) than to move outdoors where I can touch, hold, and observe the connection between a vine and a branch. With a plant in my hands, I am filled with awe and wonder. I am amazed and blown away by what starts with a tiny seed. I am a beginner. I begin to realize I know so very little about the miracle of God’s tending and all he’s up to in the world. I touch with my fingers a delicate proof that what works, that what is ultimately worthwhile, may appear small and far from giving me the result I want now. This moment of awe feels wonderful and refreshing, so completely different than trying to get a website to load so I can hit a deadline.


Friends, this summer may joy be found in unexpected places, in hands that smell like tomato vines and the uncontrollability of the weather. May the delays and surprises of nature offer you glimpses into the deep gladness of not being in control. Every time you leave your phone behind as you step outdoors for a walk or a sit on the patio, may you feel the small gratifying thrill of rebellion against the machine.


As you tend, know that you are being tended to by one who is gentle, wise, and fully committed to your flourishing. When you step outdoors to pray and to listen, remember you are in solidarity with Jesus who saw his Father’s heart and care for the world in the soil, seeds, and wildflowers. Within the nature of nature may you experience the slow healing grace of unpredictability, the awareness that your lack of control might just be the place where your heart is met and deeply cared for by God.