We started our discussion with an analysis of the erosion of all standards of value and meaning in the world. Mankind seems to have reached a dead-end street. All the dreams have already been dreamt and found wanting; all the visions viewed and discarded; all the ideals deserted. Man seems to have already had his future and stands now in a wasteland of history with his only wretched preoccupation how to save his skin from the ultimate disaster.
Yet there are some bright spots even in this dark horizon. They harbor some promise; they represent the challenge and the opportunity. Young people were among the first to notice that something was amiss; they were among the first to sense the loss of purpose, of worthwhile goals, in this civilization. Many rebelled. Their rebellion was a symptom of the sickness, a manifestation of the need for spiritual integrity. The drug culture was such a symptom of the sickness. It was a desperate cry for some magic source of human salvation, as young people sensed that they were drowning in meaninglessness and absurdity. Salvation did not come; the sickness and the cry remained. Nearer to the present hour, we recognize the same restless search for new horizons among the young in the drift towards Eastern mysticism, in the longing for some secret formula to be received from the divine wisdom of some guru who happens to be in the vogue, some mystical incantation to which one may cling in order to save oneself from suffocation in the spiritual vacuum of this declining civilization. The same desperate search is motivating some of the new fangled faith-oriented fad groups like the Jesus freaks and others. All this is no solution, but still only the symptoms of the sickness. However, the direction of the search indicates a sensing of the dimension whence alone healing may come, pointing to the realm beyond the material, the domain of the spirit, the homeland of all meaning and worthwhile purpose to guide human existence. It is the dimension indwelt– as will ultimately be discovered– by the spirit of God.
Of late, one may notice how this longing for internal security of the spirit is gradually spreading to the adult population as well. This rather late and slow awakening is, of course, not unrelated to the economic insecurity and political imbalance that recently–and especially since the Yom Kippur war–threatens to engulf all of mankind. Energy crisis, the threat of international bankruptcy, social and political disorders, starving millions– and no vision, no ideals, no faith, but a spiritually and morally exhausted human race to cope with the world-encompassing problems of humanity’s survival. It brings home the truth that science and technology alone will not do the job; that new foundations of the spirit, and in the spirit, are needed in this world that has lost its anchor and is drifting dangerously into the “Final Solution” of thermonuclear oblivion.