Through the importance of
pilgrimage, the medieval civilization has shown us how they are tied to the
covenant community; furthermore, the historical sense shows that they are proud
of their own locality. By being rooted to the covenantal community, they
practice to maintain the identity of their civilization and also their personal
or self-identity. With a strong identity, they will also be able to maintain
the moral standard of the civilization and they are also able to be tied to
their calling understanding that God have a unique calling for every distinct
human being. Besides maintaining a strong identity, the idea of covenant
community or locality also allow us to keep a good relation between the people
among the community; therefore, having a good social relation such that they
were able to bless each other.
In the modern world today the
civilizations are constantly affected by the globalization where the people are
forced to become global. The people today, moreover, do not apply the concept
or idea of the covenant community or locality; therefore, they are easily being
affected by the globalization that is currently affecting the world. As a
result, people were not be able to maintain their locality or their
civilization identity and would rather blend in with the modern world where
they lost their personal or self-identity as well. Lost in the uniformity of
the world, we are not able to achieve or pursue our unique calling that God
have given to every one of us. Besides losing the identity, people were also
not able to maintain a good relationship between each other, especially among
the community such that they prefer to socialize with the world so that they
would "exist" or become popular and forsake our relationship with our
close community. Furthermore, although modern innovation and advancement in
technology allows us to build our social life virtually through the social
networks, relationship are still not found to be as strong compared to the
relationship physically built where we see the person directly.
Although the our civilization are
challenged with the globalization, it does not mean that we should blend in
with the world and forsaking our locality; however, it also does not mean that
we should isolate ourselves form the world. A balanced solution is to take the
good ideas from the world and adjust it so that it would fit with our locality,
but we should also not be like the Chinese who just simply copying everything
from the world since it would lead to the same concept of uniformity. To
determine and adjust the ideas, we should refer to the Word of God which will
help us to discern. Through this way, the gospel will allow us to change all
the false or partial truth ideas of the world
into a true good ideas that we could bring to our civilization and still
maintain the true moral standard and identity; moreover, it also allows
individuals to maintain their uniqueness and calling that God have given. We as
a part of a community should also maintain a good relation with our community
since the people in our community are those who are able to bless us much more
compared to the world.
As a conclusion, the medieval
have shown us through their importance of pilgrimage how they were tied to
their covenant community and were proud of their locality. This way, they are
able to maintain the identity and values in their community and have a good
social relationship with the community that will be able to bless them. On the
other hand, the modern world today are challenged by the constant globalization
that people prefer to blend in with the world and forsake their locality and
identity. This cause the people to not be able to pursue their unique calling
of God; moreover, people were not have a good relationship with the community
that they are not blessed because they want to blend themselves to the world
social. To maintain our locality and community covenant, therefore, when faced
with globalization, we should take the good ideas from the world based on the
Word of God and adjust it before we apply it to our local civilization so that
we are still able to maintain the true moral standard in our civilization; we
will also be able to maintain our self-identity and uniqueness to be able to
pursue God's unique calling for us. Lastly, we should also not forsake our
community with those people who are close to us and wanting to become popular
in the world, since the community is the one who will be able to help and bless
us in difficult times.