What used to be a community has been traded for collective isolation.
When it comes to the phenomenon known as “urban sprawl,” the true heart of the problem has always been environmental. As a city branches out with suburbs, the surrounding unspoiled land gives way to miles of cookie-cutter housing developments, strip malls, and industrial parks. However, there is a more devious byproduct of urban sprawl that threatens the growing city’s future: the gradual erosion of spirituality.
We’ve separated ourselves from others within our own cities, sacrificing personal interaction. The way modern cities are planned directly discourages you from talking to your neighbors, from caring about what’s happening in their lives. It whispers in your ear and tells you that you are an island. Nothing you do will affect anyone. Nothing you do can be seen by anyone. Following this subliminal pattern will ultimately leave a person spiritually calloused and apathetic to humanity. Because personal connections among people within families, churches, and communities are integral to their survival, lack of these connections poses certain danger: They will become insipid and irrelevant shadows of the past.
The isolation doesn’t stop at suburbia. The digital revolution cares little about your need for human contact or spirituality and more about turning us into islands. The protocol is painfully familiar. It tells you not to go to the record store to buy that album. Stay at home and download it. Then upload it to your iPod. That way, in case you ever have to go outside again, you can stick the ear buds in and easily ignore the world around you.
Trendy online social websites such as MySpace and Facebook also serve as compelling evidence. You make "friends" that you don’t ever meet and you base your knowledge of them solely on a profile that is often a superficial briefing. Even then your friendship is little more than an occasional comment on a message board, serving only as a thin veneer for the detachment it sells you. It’s impossible to tell if this is a cause or merely a symptom of the illness. Do we have MySpace friends simply because we’re desperate for contact and have forgotten how to request friends in real life?
The result: a passive and detached America with a cheapened spirituality. Empty churches. Depressed and uninspired youth. Passionless communities. Parents who teach children that isolation is the norm; that stoicism toward the people around them is the norm; that ignoring spirituality is the norm. Are we really OK with this?
You were built for much more—for life in families, communities, and true relationships that delve beneath the surface. Wake yourself. Wake your community.
