Dear Members and Friends,
Michael Cretella called me on the phone and I decided it was far too inconvenient to speak into a receiver with a wire attached to it, so Lisa was kind enough to fetch the remote handset from its rejuvenating cradle. Of course I could have used our four inch cell phone, but then, the call had come in on the old fashioned land line, so I had no choice.
During our conversation, that was essentially about laptop computers and classic movies, it dawned on us how very much we are alive in “The Age of Accessibility”. Whether it be calculated in speed on the highway, or in our PC’s memory chip; whether it’s measured in terms of miles bridged by air or by email, in a myriad of means far too numerous to catalogue here, we are a people who have yesterday’s wild fantasies easily within our everyday reach. The power, and more importantly, the information kept from just about everyone a generation ago is now downloadable or reachable by almost anyone capable of a few keystrokes and the patience to wait half a minute or two.
Today we are alive in a time akin to a New Reformation and period of Enlightenment, where the knowledge and conversance formerly available to a small elite is now free for the asking, with the only real stumbling block being our inability to know what it is that we truly need to receive. This is why, surrounded by a plethora of items we can buy, few of us are certain what it is we actually want to purchase.
As Michael and I continued in our conversation, increasingly about acquisition, we were caused to wonder, not about how much as a culture we have gained, but how much as a people we have lost. Perhaps it is that in everything we obtain, there is the potential of having something precious we might forego. For instance, while we can hold a clear and instantaneous conversation with someone across the world with a device scarcely bigger than the palm of one hand, how many times do we struggle in speaking with our neighbor across the street, or even our loved ones across the table? In how many households do words stream out by the hundreds on the “net”, while few phrases are exchanged directly, face to face, through the air?
This all is not to say technology is intrinsically bad. Indeed, it can be wonderful, so long as the people who invented it remember how to control it and how to appreciate it. It is a matter of keeping the ability to marvel at the music more than the quality of the sound – the gift of seeing the beautiful picture and not so much the giant flat-screen TV.
Considering our history, it appears as a species we have often shown ourselves far better at reaching up than fully grasping within. Thus with all of our possessions and potential, we have attained a profound sense of emptiness, becoming expert at practicing the art of materialism without meaning. Yet, with all we have lost, we cannot lose hope. For though we have surrendered much in our bold ascension to the heavens, we have been saved in the One who found and took hold of us on earth.
Salvation lies not so much in the fact that we have accessed and acquired Jesus Christ, but far more in the truth that he has loved and embraced us. Isn’t it amazing what one can learn on the telephone?
From Reverend William J. Keane,
Senior Minister of First Baptist Church of Branford
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