All Is Not Lost

I for one appreciate modern advances.  Travel to any country is within a few hours of flying time.  Medical advancements keep us living longer and healthier.  In seconds we can communicate to someone in Laos or Botswana via instant messaging.  Industry builds things quickly and inexpensively.  Fruit grown in Ecuador is freshly placed on the breakfast table. 

We take all this for granted, but it was only a few centuries ago these things were not even a thought.  Now through an advancing series of analysis, reason, organization and control, our modern world has developed.   

In all these advancements we need to ask ourselves what has been stolen in the process.  For the modern humanistic mindset does tend to rob us of qualities that are deeper than the particulars we can see.  The natural dismisses the supernatural; individualism dismisses the community; science dismisses the sacred. 

Dr. Dianne Collard alerted us to what has been lost through the centuries when we were studying in the small rural town of Rutherfordton.  It hosted the cultural training center where our paths crossed.  I remember it well because Diana celebrated her fortieth birthday while we there.  One day we slipped out of class, made our way to downtown and had a special lunch together at the Legal Grounds.  Afterwards we found an antique store, and she picked out a gold trimmed tea cup for a gift.

On a fine September morning surrounded by people headed off to China, Bosnia, India and Micronesia, Dr. Collard pointed out the things we had lost to the modern mindset.  “Life was lived under a sacred canopy,” she said, meaning that western countries lived under a set of common assumptions that gave order and meaning to life.  “Life was processed through the Truth of Biblical revelation.”   

A world beyond the natural was at the core of those beliefs - the Trinity, an infinite Spirit, the mystery of Christ, miracles, and deceiving spirits.  All of life was processed through this supernatural reality before the scientific principles of reason and empirical observation usurped what was considered “superstitious” religious beliefs.  A meaningful spirituality was lost. 

It can sound discouraging but it’s not.  All is not lost.  God is still at work in your life and in countless others.