My mom and I were driving back up to her home with the kids with the plan to stay there for two weeks. These sorts of visits become a pseudo-break for me, and I have to maximize every second while I have the extra help. Normally on the drive up I would listen to the Indigo Girls and sing along at the top of my lungs. Instead, while the kids are mesmerized by Curious George 2 on the iPad strapped to my headrest by a bungee cord, I am listening to podcasts, one of which is This American Life.
I randomly chose “When Patents Attack,” thinking it would likely not hold my attention for long. But of course, I was wrong. I got sucked into the story of journalists who explored their current usefulness and controversial nature of patents especially in the context of the tech industry. Apparently, patents have become basically an obsolete way of licensing in the US. Its original intent was not simply to protect the creative inventor, which is what originally came to my mind, but a way to share information. For instance, the cotton gin would never have become what it is without the patent because Eli Whitney would have kept it locked up in a dark shed. And yet, today the purpose has become so diluted by legal and technical gibberish to mask the uninspired creations of scientists and engineers that hardly understand themselves what is being licensed and for what purpose. “Patent trolls” are companies that amass huge troves of patents and make money by threatening lawsuits. The journalists who covered this story eventually discover a hallway full of empty companies with no employees.
My mind started turning, thinking about the church. Thinking about churches full of empty hallways and classrooms, and worse yet, empty pews and rooms full of used chairs and tables, and sad, old pianos that are tuneless and out-of-tune, and then… thinking about what it means to define church. Is that church? We are in a season of potential innovation and wonderful imaginative experiences of Christ’s body gathered together. But, there are barriers. Some of those barriers are those people or traditions that seem to have a patent on the traditions of the church. There are “ways of doing things that have always been done,” and concerns about “how [big pledger’s name] will respond,” as well as programs, pianos, and piles of paper that take up valuable space – rather than invitepeople into these spaces. And perhaps gradually, like a slow death, what was to meant to be a venue for encountering God in meaningful ways has become an object of consumption and monopolization.
Maybe I’m being a bit dramatic. Maybe this isn’t really that directly analogous – churches and patents. But, maybe there’s something to reflecting on this when being in community with each other and God has become more about gate-keeping and grave-guarding rather than giving and providing space for a genuine encounter with God. After all, isn’t this what’s become of the patent? A way to gate-keep and capitalize on something in a way that’s beneficial to one or a few rather than its original intent to be a vehicle to share information for the good of wider society? And our church traditions, rituals, and communities…are they going the way of the patent?
When we finally arrived at my parents’ home I looked at my makeshift iPad holder. I thought briefly about what it would mean to try to patent this kind of “invention.” Though useful, it doesn’t fit the definition of a “breakthrough.” But, it might be helpful to someone else. I think I’ll just blog or tweet about it. Maybe someone else will come up with something better, maybe build on my bungee cord idea, and help me to refine it a little more. Or maybe it will just come up as a fun topic of conversation, and others can share about what they do with a car full of toddlers on their journeys home.
Mihee Kim-Kort is a teaching elder but mostly stay-at-home mom to twins, Desmond and Anna, and a third named Oswald (I should mention the fourth named Ellis, our boxer dog). The children graciously allow her to also work part-time in a ministry with college students as well as serve on various boards and committees. She is a writer and blogger (www.miheekimkort.com). She and husband Andy, who is also a teaching elder, live in Bloomington, Indiana.
