Human life.  The human era.  We don’t know how far we’ve come nor where we are going.    What we do know is that technology is moving forward, and for better or worse, it’s not going away.  How is the great mystery of the universe, God, being revealed to us today?  If there is revelation, it’s hard to see amidst the war, the pornography, the greed, the selfishness, and possible dehumanization by technological forces.

On top of that, major religious institutions are crumbling.  All the major religions developed in the last 2000 – 5000 years have developed around texts and oral traditions.  Just as oral tradition diminished due to printing and writing, our books and texts are too slow for today’s world.  We have e-books, we again are listening instead of reading, but listening to a million voices at once.  Here’s something the good sister pointed out that I hadn’t thought of or at least not thought of very seriously: before all of this the world of Spirit existed .  How we experienced it changed and then it continued in that form for thousands of years.  We were told how to consider it, how to hear it, how to live it. 

In today’s world, we can no longer say “you tell me how to experience it.”  Well, I might like it that way, but it won’t necessarily cut it with especially young people who grew up in a superfast techno-world.   The responsibility to question and doubt and ultimately hear it is our own. 

The life of today is not inherently a  danger to humanity, but it is a danger because it is new and it is fast. We went on to consider the “end of the human era.”  This could happen by WMDS or technology.  If you haven’t heard about the Singularity movement, you ought to take a little Google walk through that world, where humans and technology merge.  Scary stuff, and yet…technology seems to always win, whether it be the wheel versus dragging stuff or cars replacing horses or whatever.  So it may not necessarily be bad, but it will definitely be different.  So if we are to maintain our humanity, if that’s even possible, we need a radical change in how we are aware of and respond to the spiritual world. 

We took a little side step and considered evolution – first there was matter, then it organized itself into life, at which point it – the matter of life – moved at a much faster pace and with far greater complexity.  Then we humans had another dramatic leap from life to self-reflection and consciousness of the world around us and then things started to move even faster.   One minute we were rubbing 2 sticks together to make fire and the next we landed on the moon.  In cosmic time, this was but an instant.   Now as things move faster we have a sense that we’re running behind.  I didn’t know about Singularity, did you? 

The important message was that we are all part of the evolution. We are all cosmic ten year olds.   It is a question we must each ask our own hearts: do we really want the human era to end?  The era of humanity?  Only by going deep, listening for the wisdom will we know how, on a personal level,  to respond to the global age and how to answer this question.

That day ended with a DVD of some of the Hubble telescope photographs.  It was a big screen TV (the joy of technology at a retreat house!) and the photos are, of course, mind boggling.  We were asked to consider  Psalm 8 from the Bible while we watched it: 

“When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have created, who am I that you should consider me?”

It was about half an hour of gazing into the depths of the heavens, with some explanations of what we were seeing, most of which I didn’t understand nor remember, but I do know this.  When the movie was over and I went outside into the beautiful garden of San Damiano retreat house, with its green trees, flowers of every color, brids flying and tweeting, warm blooded human beings walking out with me,  it felt surreal to consider that this planet, in the midst of all that energy and power, even exists at all. 

I certainly  can’t help but ponder the meaning and the future path of humanity…and no philosopher or theologian can answer it for me.  Off to the silence to listen to the wisdom…