Previously, and while writing this Occasional Paper, I have been reading on the topic of technology and society. On the one hand, I was encouraged in these scholarly approaches, but I also became discouraged because the problems seem bigger than we can comprehend. There seems to be no clear answer to the question "What can we do?" Yet the question is so important that I want to make it explicit.

Is the answer in Christian faith? Some believe that God will not abandon creation, others believe that the apocalypse is near.

Is the answer in continued techno-scientific searching? Some believe that we are only experiencing the pains of birth into a new and perfect era; others find support in Ellul's words that "we can now almost design and manipulate genetically the ideal new human creature, but we do not agree on what the ideal features are." (Ref 1)

Is the answer in going back to nature? History and nature have never given us a change to go back; time points only forward. Even if we could go back, I oppose the idea that symbiosis with nature is a step backwards! I also want to reject the notion that a lifestyle lived close to nature is idyllic or romantic.

So I keep asking myself "what can I do?" During my time in Guatemala I felt that our work (numerically irrelevant to the enormous need) was also constantly ridiculed by the overwhelming powers of the established military and big-scale commerce and industry. But these same powers made me see the strength of what I have come to see as "incarnation"--with a different theological background I would probably call it "symbol," or "sacrament." (Ref 2) Our action may be a small, but powerful symbol. This symbol participates in the way to which it points. Its story is told and multiplied by the common people who live out their faith. We have to go out of our way in order to perceive it, but it is there.

How do we participate in that difference? The consumer holds, for example, an important key to the contradiction of efficient production but wasteful and inefficient consumption.

One key word is obedience: we should not act because of an obvious outcome, but because the job needs to be done. That implies a different interpretation of the concept of faith.

A second key concept is participation and prophetics: we cannot change the scene visibly and at once, but we are called to prepare for, and participate in change; to imagine the difference. I refer to that age-old process which in the Christian tradition is made most visible by the Old Testament prophets, and later by the saints in and outside of the church. They dramatized, or simply asked the right questions, or clearly called out for justice. They often saw no change, but kept alive the awareness that the outcome (the product for tomorrow) is not more important than the way (the process of today). That is not a Western idea, but it is the essence of my paper.

Once, one day after returning from a long business and family trip by car to Canada, I walked with my hand-pulled wagon to the laundromat and supermarket, one mile from our house. I pondered the irony that I just drove so far by car, and yet did not want to drive this seemingly irrelevant distance. But then I realized that once I had decided to go to Canada, by common sense, I had no other option than the car, whereas for this task I did have another option, the wagon. With this example I encourage especially our own Mennonite church to carefully discern and probe, even if numerically irrelevant, the power of just that step of incarnation. However, let it not become as small a symbol as the tiny pieces of bread used in the Holy Supper, but let it rather be a large celebration of faith! Only then the very nature of creation can really manifest itself through our lives, as we become participants in peace, rather than makers of peace. But that goes beyond the scope of this paper, and beyond writing!

XIRIJ TA!