One of the most famous lines in E.M. Forster’s novel Howards End is the phrase “only connect.” It is both a diagnosis of a problem and a prescription for a cure. Its stark message names the space that too readily exists between us, the gaps in life and relationships that need to be overcome if we are going to live together in harmony. And in an emphatic way, it tells us to reach across the divide and simply re-connect with one another.
Forster’s novel was set in pre-World War I, Victorian England, a time in which social protocols kept people distant and formal in their relations even as new technology and global challenges were bringing people closer together. In chapter 22, the rallying cry was given its fullest expression:
“Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect…”
There is a heartfelt hope that the two parts of life–the prose and the passion, the formal and the vulnerable–might come together, and love in its fullest expression would finally be possible.
There is an eerie similarity between this Victorian-era sentiment and our modern computer era. Constantly we are told about social media that connects people across boundaries of time and space–Facebook communities, Twitter fans, e-mail messages collecting on our computer screen and heralding their arrival through beeps coming from our iPhones, BlackBerrys, and pagers. We are bombarded with contact with others, and yet struggle with issues of intimacy, of in-depth relationships, and of truly connecting as family and friends any more.
The gospel of Jesus Christ, especially as it is shared during the seasons of Advent and Christmas, offers a healing re-formulation of Forster’s phrase. In the joyful news of the birth of Christ, the heavens themselves proclaim God’s message, “I will connect with you!” No longer is the responsibility for bridging the gap left solely upon our shoulders. God in Christ has taken the task to heart and come to us that we might “connect” with God and one another. “Prose and passion” are both exalted. The law of Moses, the rhetoric of the prophets, the sweep of a salvation-history that stretches from creation’s dawn to the distant horizon of God’s realm are all condensed and inter-connected in the birth of Jesus Christ.
We can connect because God has first connected with us. We can trust and hope because, through the healing grace and covenantal love of Christ, we have been made trustworthy and eternally hopeful. As you purchase gifts or send cards, as you pray for others and seek to do acts that are just and compassionate, trust that you can connect with others because God in Christ has connected with us. Let all the earth rejoice!