Science and medicine will help us live longer and better. Computers will help us sail through some of the complexities and the tedium of life. The Internet will help us overcome our loneliness and estrangement. We place our trust in technology, but machines and science can only go so far. What we long for is a human connection, a sense that another human being is sharing our struggle in this moment and is there with us and for us.
Email can be a wonderful thing.
But prudent people will be wary. On this Good Shepherd Sunday, I want to suggest that our sense of isolation and estrangement, our suspicion and even open hostility, has an important spiritual dimension. We are alienated in lots of little ways because we are alienated in ultimate ways. The issue is one of trust. But it is important that we not become simplistic.