angel is unique and has his or her own role, but the order is so perfect that
heaven functions as one angel.
We see very little of that in this chaotic world, or in our own lives. But we
have all witnessed and experienced what is possible to achieve when people
work selflessly together.
Some of the greatest examples in history, Mr. Simons said, were the
building of the pyramids in Egypt, the construction of the Panama Canal,
and landing a man on the moon. Each of these massive efforts involved about
100,000 people – perhaps the outer limit of group cooperation in this world.
Now the Internet lets us bring people together and share information in
incredible new and immediate ways. More than half the people in the world
are plugged into computers – making connections, searching for information.
Like everything else, cyberspace has potential for great good and enormous
harm, depending on our choices.
We know the Lord anticipated this revolutionary new tool, and foresees
everything to come in the next hundred years and ongoing centuries. We may
wonder, as did Samuel Morse in reverent innocence when he opened the first
telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington, DC, with the ominous quote
from Numbers 23:23: “What hath God wrought?”
The Gutenberg printing press first revolutionized mass communication
– and now there are more than six billion Bibles in print. The telegraph,
telephone, radio, television, computers and all the spinoffs, from iPhones to
iPads and Twitter, have expanded communication in miraculous ways. Now
people all over the world, for instance, are searching for and learning about the
New Church and the Heavenly Doctrines in ways we could scarcely imagine
or quantify.
We like to think, of course, that we are in charge of all these marvels –
while also being concerned about where they are leading us and what God
hath wrought. Comfort comes in the sure faith that this, too, is all in the order
of God’s providence.
And as we contemplate the downward spiral in the world, Mr. Simons
offered this comforting perspective: “The point is that the Lord is organizing
the whole world in ways that we have almost no awareness of, by the constant
influx of His life and love into the world, shaping us all into the human form.”
And, if we follow His leading, into the perfect order of heaven.
(BMH)
question authority
There are two kinds of authority: human and Divine. Both kinds should be
questioned--but not in the same way.
Because the motives of human beings are often less than pure, and their
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