We live in a world that has been so radically developed by technology that we can interact with those on the other side of the globe in an instant.  Our cultures have become so amalgamated through the globalizing effect of this technology within the realms of pop culture, social media, consumerist marketing, and the like, that we are able to find much common ground with those who are in a totally different cultural and geographical

The cover photo of this article depicts a highway, near my house, running through a farm that is now an eight-foot lake.  In my region of South Carolina last week we received around 16 inches of rain in two days, 24 inches in the course of a week.  Across the state there have been at least a dozen deaths, 19 dam breaches, hundreds of swift water rescues, and over 1000 people are now in shelters.

“If we ask ourselves whether there are a significant number of people today without true friends, or whether our modern society is one in which friendship plays a diminishing role, I think the answers are yes”1 In our current cultural climate, there is a growing sense that we are more connected than ever, yet we lack intimacy. We have hundreds of social media friends and followers, access to world and local news whenever we want

“Our two little granddaughters have a sense of community which many adults have lost; people have developed less a sense of community than a loneliness which they attempt to assuage by being with other people constantly, and on a superficial level only…The loneliness, the namelessness of cocktail-party relationships surround us. We meet, but even when we kiss we do not touch. We avoid the responsibility of community.”1       —Madeleine L’Engle   There is