I am making Coffee

This is what I said to myself, as I was going through the process of making my coffee this morning. Perhaps because I was not fully awake, it occured to me that this statement was bizarre. And it would have been more accurate to say that I and my Espresso machine were making coffee. We were working together as one unit - a person and a machine!

My espresso machine is a marvel, containing all kinds of parts, many of them plastic, and I have no idea how it is made. All I knew, is that I bought it, for not much money, at the market. And I bought my coffee at another market, for not much money. We live in a time of The Market, where almost anything can be purchased, for very reasonable sums. Some of them. from far away, on the other side of the world.

An automobile, for example - is assembled from parts from everywhere. The manufacturer buys them on the market, and sells the car - also on the market. And everyone considers this perfectly normal - when it is most definitely not!

This was the miracle of the Industrial Era - that gave us more things than ever before. But made us less human - because we became parts of a huge machine, that was unstable in its operation - and had no interest in us. It was more important than we were.

My parents generation knew this, and were proud of it - they were part of something very big. And were willing to defend it with their lives. And were willing to turn off their minds - and not think about what they were doing. The knew one hard-and-fast rule - do not think!

Then the Computer came along - and the Digital Revolution. To use the Computer, and its Software, people had to think. Their thinking was limited to thinking about Software - but they were thinking. And they realized, vaguely - that the way things were being done, was not quite right!

This is where we are now - partly not-thinking and Mechanical, and partly thinking and Digital.

This morning Transforming the powers: the continuing relevance of Walter Wink plopped into my inbox. Ted Grimsrud teaches theology at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

This article arrived via the Internet, a product of the Digital Revolution - that many countries censor vigorously. The truth will make men free - and that is the last thing they want.