Countervailing Forces To Fragmentation
I like the way David Brooks, New York Times, Op-Ed columnist thinks and writes. He looks much deeper for underlying causes than most. I don’t know if he knows what he is talking about, but his explanations often seem plausible to me.
In his November 20 Op-Ed piece, “The Segmented Society”, he makes the point that “the 1970s were a great moment for musical integration…But cultural history has pivot moments, and at some point toward the end of the 1970s or the early 1980s, the era of integration gave way to the era of fragmentation.”
“It seems that whatever story I cover, people are anxious about fragmentation and longing for cohesion. This is the driving fear behind the inequality and immigration debates, behind worries of polarization and behind the entire Obama candidacy.”
“If you go to marketing conferences, you realize we really are in the era of the long tail. In any given industry, companies are dividing the marketplace into narrower and more segmented lifestyle niches.”
“We live in an age in which the technological and commercial momentum drives fragmentation. It’s going to be necessary to set up countervailing forces — institutions that span social, class and ethnic lines.”
Enter City House. We are too small to be called an institution. I am hopeful thinking about us as a movement - a small part of something much bigger than ourselves - a piece of flotsam on God’s ocean of possibility.
With humility, I am hopeful that our contribution to the countervailing forces of fragmentation is to invite middle and upper class folks into a relationship with the poor - for the sake of the poor - for our own sakes - for the sake of the world. By inviting people to do this through the unusual lense of spirituality, we believe we are doing something uniquely unfamiliar.
Icon by S.T. Georgiou
“The fact remains that every street is Mystic Street. Every lane we walk and every turn around every bend is an invitation to spiritual discovery. We have only to remain open to the understanding that the divine blessings of love and grace are unlimited, are unconditional, and are everywhere.”
Mystic Street: Meditations on a Spiritual Path by S.T. Georgiou
Who would have ever thought that the divine blessings of love and grace could be unlimited, unconditional, and palpable among the poor? I think Jesus and many others got it. Won’t you consider joining this movement toward integration and spiritual discovery?
