Walking on air and other dangerous pursuits
••• Video conferencing is pretty amazing. I called my sister and brother-in-law on the West Coast the other day and we had a long conversation—that lasted about three hours. What kind of talk? Mostly the economy and politics, with some family thrown in for good measure. But we ended up talking about the importance of common belief. We agreed that there seemed to be a widespread desire for more functioning community in our lives but there wasn’t a common foundation of belief in modern society—at least from a spiritual or moral perspective. Instead of community we’re connected to jobs and shopping and our individual pursuits—and long-distance relationships as a replacement for community, and perhaps at the expense of community. So two things seem to be happening. First, more than ever we’ve become single units in a larger system. And second, the larger system is evermore complex and centralized as organizations merge and expand. Today we occupy more specialized positions in these complex
