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Have you ever thought about how much you've bought into the normality of the world's systems? I'm taking heavily here from a great little book entitled, Colossians Remixed. We are all in school. Our teachers are advertisers and manufacturers of the goods we consume. We are taught to be consumers. We are taught that enough is never enough. We are bred to want the next thing without being satisfied with what we have. We are inundated with these things. These are the things that really lead us into bondage...bondage to stuff and into a false ideology that makes us think we need what we don't need.
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Current trends allow us to be connected without ever being connected. We communicate without ever seeing people or hearing their voices (Facebook, texts, e-mails, twitter). In regards to consumption, we consume good without ever meeting the people in the process - those who work in slave labor to make our goods - those who loose jobs because their quality product has been undersold by a cheaper manufacturer. We have the blessing of sensing security in our own country without thinking of the great insecurity our brothers and sisters around the world face in violent or impoverished situations. We are insulated. This insulation leads us toward a lack of connection with others. A lack of having to empathize. We don't have to think about how our lifestyle and what we're being taught to do and think and believe actually hurt other people. But this is the sad truth of what happens when we just take in life centered around us. We are alienated from God and the emphasis on ourselves alienates us from others.
