Well, What do You Know?

"I met a man at the coffee shop, and was telling him all about the powerful players in the Middle East controversy. Found out at the end of the conversation that this man lives next door to me."


I wonder if we can't see any of the world, because we are trying to see all of it.

(background in Amusing Ourselves to Death)
(Inspired by a small portion of the Pilgrim's Regress, p. 198-199.)


In our modern age, we are inundated with information. We have the ability to know what is going on (albeit, perhaps a bit skewed) in almost any part of the world. It has almost become a moral obligation to be not only aware, but punditic and opinionated to the point of argument.

But what has actually occurred is the exact opposite. We don't care. We are overloaded with information, and so we withdraw from it all.

Perhaps, in trying to see the whole forest, we see and care less about the trees. Perhaps, in trying to know the whole world, we know nothing about our neighbor. Perhaps, in trying to become part of the "universal consciousness," we are in fact, comatose.

What if we were created for the opposite. What if, in knowing one person so well, we can then meet all people, because we know they are just like our friend. What if, by loving our community, that love would overflow to every community we see. What if, by being so attached to one place, we then care about every place, because we know it is someone's home.

If we quit trying to save the world, (and tried to save our neighborhood) perhaps we would.

"The Landlord has knit our hearts so closely to time and place -- to one friend rather than another and one shire more than all the land."
"Out, little spear that stabs. I, fool, believed
I had outgrown the local, unique sting,
I had transmuted away (I was deceived)
Into love universal the lov'd thing."
(The Pilgrim's Regress, p. 198)