"No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved." -- Matthew 9:16-17

The world is changing fast.  Babies born today may very well live to see a world we would hardly recognize.  Because of the changes in technology (especially in the areas of genetics, nanotechnology, and  robotics), the way we experience everyday life is about to shift parabolically.  As I write this, computing is undergoing a "shrinking" evolution.  We are moving from our experience of carrying computing devices to having computer chips embedded in our bodies.  Once computers reach the size of human cells, we will come to a point where we will have to ask the question, "what is human?"  The human has been relatively the same for thousands and thousands of years, but is about to take a dramatic turn.  With industrialization in the early 20th century came a new way of experiencing life.  Computers and biotechnology are taking us to yet another way of experiencing life.  Certainly new wineskins are being produced.  In some ways, we are participants in the production of these new skins.  Now, maybe more than ever, we must be vigilant in transmitting not just the information of our faith to the next generations, but perhaps more importantly, the values of it... not to fit the new into the old, but to work to make sure that the dna of the old is embedded in the fabric of the new.  Buckle up, because we're in for quite a ride!

Readings:  Genesis 26:17-27:46; Matthew 9:1-17; Psalm 10:16-18; Proverbs 3:9-10