The Life We're Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World

by Andy Crouch

My life is full of convenience. It is full of transaction, at its best a mutually beneficial exchange of value, a kind of arm’s-length benign use of one another for our own ends. But it is not full of contemplation. It is often efficient. But it is lonely.

Only when we know and are known by others can we become fully ourselves.

and indeed, the wiser we become, the less we feel that we fully know ourselves.

When we love, we are most fully and distinctively ourselves.

Lacking depth of connection with others and God, the reciprocal relations in which “deep calls to deep,” we lose our sense of soul and self. Our minds drift and wander, seeking comfort and familiarity rather than challenge and creativity.