FROM THE EDITORS March 10, 2008 Issue

FEARLESS IN A DIGITAL WORLD

FOR MANY OF US, there are days when life seems obscured in a complexity of new technology, and its byproducts of ever–accelerating change and a glut of information and choices. "It's hard to say exactly when it happened," began one segment from CBS News' 60 Minutes, "but sometime during the past ten years, most of us involuntarily surrendered a big chunk of our lives to computers, and to other networking devices that contain computer chips. . . . We are becoming slaves to our own technology–addicted to and dependent upon all sorts of beeping, flashing gadgetry that is supposed to make our lives easier" ("Get Me The Geeks!" originally broadcast Jan. 28, 2007, updated Dec. 30, 2007).

It's not that people fail to recognize the ways in which innovation has made this modern life easier and more enriched, telescoping time and distance, opening up the world in ways their grandparents never dreamed possible. But as new phases of technological advancement become more and more compressed, there may be times when our free access to information and digital automation collapses into a burden of simply having more to learn or do or file. Ironically, this can even make a person feel more isolated than empowered.

It's not about simply digging in one's heels and bucking technological advancement (as if we could); there's far too much good in all the innovation. But for the sake of true progress and balanced living, it's important to winnow the chaff from the wheat. Bottom line: We never need to surrender even the smallest "chunk" of our lives to forces that dominate. In other words, it's not about having to endure a little bad along with the good. Centuries ago, Moses heard the divine Mind speaking to him this way: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Ex. 20:3). Now more than ever, we need one totally good and all-powerful God in both our online and offline moments, along with a humility that echoes Jesus' words "I can of mine own self do nothing" (John 5:30).

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