And he said to all, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it." (Luke 9:18-24)

One of my students took the Bell Telephone commercial to heart - "Reach out and touch someone." Last Thanksgiving, he decided that he should talk to his mother and father who were 6,500 miles away. He had to dial a California number, which he did, and from there his call was beamed to a satellite and would be sent down to a receiving antenna on the Marshall Islands. An operator on the island of Kwajalein then would ring his parents’ number and the connection between Minnesota and the Marshall Islands was established. But the "instant intimacy" suggested by …