The Grey Town Community

Back to another question about The Great Divorce. It’s disturbing to me that technology has in one breath connected us and alienated our need for one another, at least that’s what it seems at a first glance (and, yes, there’s irony in placing this on a blog).

As the passengers on the bus move from the grey town and up through the crack in heaven’s floor, we learn that the grey town inhabitants can simply move to a new street and a new house by “imagining it.” Therefore there is no interdependency or community since there is no need to rely on one another. “If they needed real houses, they’d have to stay near where builders were,” says the Intelligent Man to our narrator. Or, could we say, “If they needed a real church or a real office building or a real main street or a real college quad…?”

How would you rate the need for community in your life – your neighbor, your local store owners, your church, your area school? Is there a relation to your pursuit of the Gospel? Have you seen this need fade due to technology, the busy pace of life, the need we have of each other or something else?

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