Ramblings from a Tuesday Morning

Just a few things floating around in my head this morning.

• Our country's new "gods" seem to be politics, entertainment, and wealth.  Of course, these have always been at the core of humanity's idolatry, but it has become very blatant in recent years.  These are all you seem to see advertised on TV anymore.  You also don't hear many stories about how people show care for each other anymore.  At most, you get the occasional news feature that shows how someone did something like this in the community, and it's a great feel-good story because it's not something that seems to be regularly experienced anymore.
• A true sense of community has been replaced by having a large number of acquaintances.  Think about Facebook.  How many of your "friends" do you really know well?  How many of them are people that you encountered for a season in life, but haven't really known for quite some time?  Rather than taking the time to develop deep, lasting relationships, we now seem to focus on having a lot of shallow acquaintances that barely seem to know us, or us know them.
• When it comes to celebrations, we hardly seem to celebrate the great or the excellent anymore.  Instead, we celebrate participation.  In fact, it seems to have gotten to the point that, if you actually do achieve something great or excellent, others seek to tear it down or discredit it, since it may make them feel inferior in some way.  Rather than celebrating how someone actually achieved something, we now feel like they are a threat to how we see ourselves, and want to bring them back down to our level.
• As a society, we seem to see things so starkly as either black or white.  An example of this is the whole homosexual issue that is raging in our country.  It seems that you either have to be for it completely or totally against it.  Gone seem to be the days when you could say that you disagree with a certain type of behavior, and yet still have encouraging interaction with that person.  Now, it seems that if you say that the behavior is wrong that you are instantly labelled as anti-whatever it is.  This is especially distressing when it comes to the Christian faith, which believes that every single one of us is sinful by nature, and yet, every single one of us has been rescued by Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.  There is a place to say "This is wrong" and yet still care about the person.  
• Isn't it amazing how technology seems to make the world smaller and smaller, and yet seems to create more and more distance between us in our personal relationships?