In the Third Millennium

What is La Parra Center’s future in the third millennium?  What can it contribute to the world in the twenty-first century?

We highlight three areas of significance deriving from observable characteristics of the last decades of the twentieth century.
One characteristic of the latter part of the twentieth century has been the fact that in so many areas material progress has reached a maximum or a saturation point. For example: Automobiles can go much faster than is safe to drive. There are so many television channels that trying to choose among them boggles the mind. True, computers will get a little smaller, and processors will get a bit faster. But, for the next thousand years what will be the direction of Progress? We at La Parra, together with many other people, believe that Progress will move in the direction of quality, and ultimately of Spirit. As urban sprawl eats up more open spaces and natural habitats, as the World Wide Web inundates us with mega-information, as the global human population adds another billion or two, more people will need authentic silence and genuine solitude for sanity’s sake, if not for the sake of the Kingdom within.

Another characteristic of the latter part of the twentieth century has been the unprecedented advances in the understanding of the dynamics that underlie human relations and interpersonal relationships. Certainly, group sessions and community interaction have an important contribution to make in the overall healing and maintaining of personal relationships. Yet, psychologists and sociologists alike appreciate perhaps better now than at any other time in history that some silence and some solitude constitute the necessary ground for intimacy with self, other persons and God. The silence and the solitude afforded by La Parra Center contribute profoundly to the nurturance of both human and divine intimacy.

Yet another characteristic of the latter part of the twentieth century has been a widespread awakening to ecological values and a sense of the cosmic.  At La Parra Center a veritable ecosystem of animals, insects, birds and a rich variety of vegetation co-habit the property with us.  Nonetheless, direct personal contact with the natural world and responsible care for the environment incite in people an awareness of the interconnectedness of all creatures, which in turn leads to a heightened sense of God transparent in all creation.

Thus, with the oncoming years, what La Parra Center has to offer will become only more valued, more needed, more a gift of God to the Christian community at large, indeed to every human being and to the planet Earth.