Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Wishing for Easy Answers...

I wish there was an easy answer to your questions that you ask regarding our "me first generation" but if there were, I don't suspect we'd be in this predicament in the first place. Indeed, how did we get here? When did human life, creation, and so much get pushed aside and our lives seen as simply ours? I'm not entirely sure but I'll throw some ideas out that we can bat around.

First, you're right that technology has made our world a very interesting place. I think it has contributed to both our betterment and decline in several ways. One, we have the potential to be better connected within our community via the Internet, cell phones, and all varieties of wireless capabilities. The problem is, the more plugged in we are with technology, the more disconnected we seem to become from one another. I think that technology, in it's purest form, is great. Yet, we have created technologies designed to minimize our workload that has actually doubled it because now we're multi-tasking, doing two jobs at once because it's so easy. The Internet and the lure of the web has drawn us away from our family, as people find virtual conversations and interaction more appealing than the ones in their very home. "Gotta check my MySpace!" is the cry of a new generation. And who's to say, no matter which side of the pro/con conversation you come down on, how many homes have been affected by online porn. Likewise, and perhaps a bit outdated, the advent of television on demand, with it's nine bajillion channels to choose from, has also sucked us into the void. There is so much going on, so much information for us to consume, that we do nothing but that. What happened to the quiet, the simple, the sublime?

I hate to sort of repeat myself but in an earlier post I discussed the virtues of the monastic way and their emphasis upon simplicity. I think this is essentially what our generation needs but instead they find themselves doing what they've learned, consuming in a fruitless effort to be filled. You name it, drugs, sex, material goods, all these things are but pacifiers for a generation of people that are searching. Bono and U2 may have coined the phrase of a world when they sang, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For."

My thinking on the issue, at least to some degree, is that the great philosopher and thinker, Sartre, was right. We have a "God-shaped hole" within all of us. We consume in order to fill this void yet the only thing to fill it adequately and fully is God. Now, the problem with this concept, although I think it's true, is that the very people who claim to be the people of God seem to have lost sight of Him! The western Church, by and large, seems to have been taken with the consumer mindset as well, offering goods and services for the price of attendance. The Church has come to be market driven, allowing the whims of the people rather than the communion and peace of a holy God to reign over them. This is a tragedy. For as the Church has become consumed with the "mega" things, the real things, the children of God, have gone suffering. I think the world is in search of this God, the real God, who can fill that void. The problem is that the Church is, instead of modeling and mirroring that God, is hiding Him.

I'm not sure I really went where we were leaning but, oh well. At least we've got the conversation back up and running...

- andy

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