High tech quest

Christian Century, August 1, 2001 by Richard Scheinin

"My colleagues and I have been doing this research for a long time," Darrah said, "and we're still struck by how decent are most of the people we meet. For the most part they're profoundly moral and concerned about issues of right and wrong. Some go to church, some don't. But there are very few people who just seem to be predatory or nonreflective or not concerned with some kind of larger meaning in their lives. Reporters come here from elsewhere looking for crazy, godless Silicon Valley spinning out of control on the edge of the San Andreas Fault and the Pacific Rim and the future.... The place isn't that simple."

THE VALLEY IS CONFOUNDING. It's radically materialistic and technologically obsessed, and it sets some high barriers to religion. Its cardinal sin is wasting time, and religion simply takes time. Yet the religious impulse is all around the valley--in both its new immigrant communities and among its high-tech workers. People do want something more.

Every morning, I drive over a mountain to work in Silicon Valley. Sometimes I leave at 5 in the morning. It's pitch black out as I drive over Highway 17, nosediving around turns that I've commited to memory after all these years. I look in my rear-view mirror and, every time, I'm shocked to see hundreds, if not thousands, of headlights lined up behind me. We're all careening through the darkness. We're together, but we're alone. And, perhaps like many others in the valley, I say to myself: I must be out of my mind. What am I doing here? There has to be something more.

Richard Scheinin covers religion for the San Jose Mercury News.