Global Village

When I was a young person living down the lane in Sydney Mines my world was only as large as what I could see. The dozen or so houses and my relatives who lived there made up my world. All this changed when we began to travel and listen to the radio and hear about places like Wheeling West Virginia. We could only imagine what it was like in those far off places. One Sunday we had a missionary speak at our church and this lady opened eyes and stirred our imagination with her word pictures. I personally hung on every word and something inside me was stirred up and from that day I could never satisfy my hunger to know about the other places in our world.

My oldest sister bought a set of books and they were like gold. The Book of Knowledge became my outlet for some of my wonders.At school we had a poor library and we were permitted to take a book or two home for a week. Often I would take more and Miss Smith turned her eyes as I pushed my luck to the limit. We used to have a belt to carry our books as backpacks were still not known. I couldn't get enough books to read. I might add that I rarely carried my school texts but the library books were my school books. My village was now becoming much larger. Our movie theatre called the Strand became my new found library and every Saturday we kids lined up and waited for the doors to open.

On the big screen we saw wondrous things. Western movies with Roy Rogers and the three stooges became our entertainment. Then in 1948 TV appeared in its crude form. Black and white and relatively expensive, it found its way into our homes. Our world changed as we became bombarded with news and stories from around the world. Pretty soon our world expanded to the point where we were learning more from the TV than in school. Much of what we learned was not so good but we did engage in much that was as we had quick reporting of what was happening around the globe.

With the space program making technical advances nearly everyone had a cell phone or a device that could become a camera, telephone,TV, radio, dictionary and a host of other processes which produced information instantly. Our sphere of knowledge became global and our village became the whole world. I see tiny tots going to school with huge backpacks and texting or using the cell phone .These changes over the past 70 years has made the world and its people much more open and available for help in times of natural disasters. When evil things are happening the world knows immediately and we truly are a global village.

Our earth is our global village but consider that our earth is but a dust particle in the big picture of our universe.We came so far but we have only begun to understand our place and role in the universe. I am sure in the next 70 years we will have new norms for religion, governments and nearly every institution which basis its role on knowledge and truth. While studying philosophy there was one statement that stays with me. There is no absolute truth but varying shades according to circumstances. This will throw some of our beliefs in a tailspin in the future as we begin to live in a universal village.