Isolation

The more telecommunications develop, the more computer technology increases, the more online access we have, the more connected to one another we should become. Seemingly that's true. My sons both have face book accounts, I don't know the exact number, but I know their friend count is in the 200+ range. I've seen people with over 500 friends. We are more connected then ever, we have more friends than ever, and yet studies tell us we are lonelier than ever. Just guessing here, it seems the more we use technology the more disconnected from one another we become. Real relationships are displaced by online relationships. Real dialogue is replaced by brief three or four line postings on our face book pages, it's easier that way yes, but, it also come with a price. We know others less, and we are known less, even when we have 200+ friends. We are isolated.

That's not the way we were designed, we are created for community, we are cast in God's image. God exist in three persons, in community. When God created Adam, God saw that Adam was alone, and declared that it wasn't good and so God gave man woman so he would not be alone. Why is it then we are more connected in theory, but in reality we are increasingly alone? What are we so busy with that keeps us from truly feeling connected? Busier than ever before, isolated like never before, how can that be? Maybe we traded quantity for quality. We substitute two or three real relationships with hundreds of online relationships, and wonder why we are isolated.

Solitude is different from isolation. The gospels are filled with passages telling us Jesus rose early in the more to pray, or Jesus went off by himself to pray. Jesus wasn't isolated, he was in solitude, and in that solitude he continued to be with his father, alone yet in community. I think that's the model for us to follow regularly, practicing solitude, in that solitude we find we are not isolated or alone, in that solitude we commune with our creator, and in that solitude we learn. We learn that we are not alone, we learn that we are to go into others isolation and bring them the good news of Jesus Christ. In solitude isolation disappears.