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From: MarkLuth@aol.com
Date: 6/15/01
Time: 12:33:26 PM
Remote Name: 152.163.206.177
I was quite taken with this article. Below is the content of an e-mail I sent to its author in response.
"David, I appreciate your thoughtful article in the latest issue of Next-Wave. Just last night, I was looking at some of Hugh Downs' interviews on iNEXTV.COM. One was with Spalding Gray, the playwright and actor. He said something which I feel dovetails with your observations: 'I find America just overwhelming… It seems to me that this country is held together by television. I honestly don't know what makes America work...'
"Everything about contemporary American life seems to militate against the kind of community for which we were made (and which Jesus died and rose to restore). The white middle class (of which I am a part) moves like locusts from one ring of suburban development to the next, consuming everything in sight, only to leave behind concrete mausoleums that would make Brasilia seem compelling. We install ourselves in suburban castles on cul de sacs, jutting off of roads beside which there are no sidewalks, parks, shops, or meeting places. (I know; I live in such a place.) Within our houses or apartments or condos, we try to have every convenience--including a TV on which we can receive nine-million channels, in order to reinforce our "self-sufficiency."
"Loneliness is among the gravest consequences of the Fall and is epidemic in a culture whose very individualistic members are literally 'hell bent' on 'being like God.' What we don't seem to get is that being like God means yearning for community, connection, intimacy no matter how much risk or how much it may hurt. That's agape.
"Good work!"