It is a big and seemingly overwhelming topic, but we had a delightful time plumbing its depths and breadth together. I think the "together" part was our first lesson.
We talked about many things. Here are a few highlights:
- The complexity of the systems that support our everyday life (Food Inc., Wall Street, etc.) is beyond our ability to comprehend them or their effects.
- We have replaced personal love relationships and trust with artificial substitutes, like brand names.
- The empire that rises one day will fall the next.
- We need to heed the 80/20 principle and SIMPLIFY our lives.
- Connectedness and the intimacy of small groups is more important than ever
- The church needs to model the unplugging from the counterfeit and reconnecting in genuine ways.
- A Boston Globe article, The Joy of Boredom, points out that every "boring" nook and cranny of our lives threatens to be crowded by technology or media -- a dangerous possibility. We need pregnant pauses in our lives: less is more.
- Ezekiel 34 warns of the strong sheep and goats butting out the weak and then ruining the grazing and the watering hole essential for the weaker sheep and goats (vv17-19). A cautionary tale for how the wealthy work in our societies today.
- We need to encourage people to connect and share so they can access their own inner healing.
- We reminisced on times when we had the freedom of time to think hard and work through complex thoughts: college, theatre troupe, early days at a start-up with other like-minded folk.
Books we should look into:
- Community: The Structure of Belonging, Peter Block. This is a book we should consider reading as a group.
- A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving.
- The Technological Society, Jacques Ellul. It talks about the amorality of technology; technology just "demands" to be used.
In the spirit of full disclosure, we spent quite a bit of time talking about how Google has become the new evil empire. That said, I used Google and Google Book Search to find the links for this posting.
