It's nearly noon in Stockholm.  I'm in the SAS lounge awaiting my next flight -- to Amsterdam -- one of my favorite cities on this fair globe.  Amsterdam to me is an icon of liberty, something we seem to have forgotten the fair market value of in the good old U.S.A. -- Yes, I do admit to often having strong Libertarian leanings; probably a function of my upbringing in a small town in Utah in the 50's and 60's...liberty or death -- wasn't that our foundation?  I'm not sure exactly how it happened -- a function of complex sociopolitical forces with a measure of fear based demagoguery -- but liberty seems to be in rather short order in the U.S. these days.  Of course all things are relative.  But having seen Amsterdam before, I see my own beloved country's shortcomings.  Liberty, above all, is the most precious commodity we can posses.  Without it, nothing else really matters.  What happened in America is best left to historians.  But I know for me, the rise of politically correct institutionalized torment is the ultimate soul killer.  Somewhere amidst the ganjaful coffee houses and colorful brothels, neither of which I necessarily condone or enjoin, lies that wonderful Dutch spirit that still lights the canal laden streets of Amsterdam.  Part of me is Dutch.  Part of all of us is Dutch.  We need to celebrate that that is Dutch in us, and welcome the freedom and diversity of which our species is so very capable.  How else can we survive another millennium?

The Sun Technology Days are off to a good start.  The kick-off event was in London once again, a place we've stopped each of the four times we've done these shows.  I had the great honor of sharing the stage with James Gosling once again, a man of great intellectual gifts to be sure; but there is also an ineffable spiritual quality about him that I find to be so very appealing.  I get these opportunities to share the stage with James because he doesn't care to give canned presentations to developers -- and since the audience is better served simply asking questions, it can make for an educational, unpredictable and enjoyable hour.  We take questions from the audience prior to the event, as developers walk in the door.  I then get to help pull questions out of the hat, as it were, and even get to ask a few myself in the way of follow-up.  For me, it has to be one of the highlights of my work whenever I get to work with Dr. Gosling.

I've been true to my calling again, in London, at a Net.Objects event in Erfurt, Germany as well as here in Stockholm -- I've again delivered the message that I hope will be heard and if not believed at least considered:  If there's hope for humanity, it's in software.  And I don't mean shrink-wrap.  With each passing day, in light of world events, I become more convinced that the path we're on (i.e.: the technical path, the networked path, the path of ephermeralization)  is of utmost importance to the future of our species.  I believe that the work we do in this industry is not only touching every aspect of human life, but that it needs to -- that it's meant to.  Beyond the Anthropic Cosmological Principle, I believe we will discover and are discovering that this path too is marked by God.  Not only do we live in a universe that wants to give rise to life; it wants to give rise to technological life.  I believe we will find that the signposts are there, if only we have eyes to see them.  Clearly our work is important -- but I believe it goes well beyond increasing productivity, or competitive advantage, or optimization of B2B transactions.  We're more than simply another industry.  We're hope.  And that, in a world that is walking a tightrope with immanent ecological collapse on one side and ignorant tribal warfare on the other,  is as precious a commodity as liberty itself.

Yesterday, at a technical conference in Stockholm,  while we met, enjoying the great share of information and ideas, celebrating the growth of Java and the Internet, helicopters over Jerusalem shot missiles at rock throwing Palestinians.  Yesterday while we met, fear in markets trumped greed as oil prices skyrocketed and equity markets crashed.  Yesterday, people died; Israeli soldiers, enraged Palestinian youth, and U.S. sailors fueling their ship in Yemen along with a small boat full of what may have been terrorists.  Yesterday, people died who didn't need to die.  In a sea of misunderstanding, how do we find peace?  How do we begin to cope with the oppressive historical baggage that weighs us all down, divides us and threatens the health, wealth and value of each and every one of us?  From the Rodney King thesis of behavior, "Why can't we all just get along?"

These a difficult questions to answer.  And perhaps there are no easy answers.  I live in hope, but hope without wisdom is folly indeed.  Somehow, as a species, as a planet of precious human beings, we must find answers to these questions -- or suffer the inevitable consequences.  In my musings  on this web site over the past few years, I've felt free to dance between spirit and Spock, finding joy, humor and even a bit of truth in the cracks between science and faith.  But I do now think that I've been dancing around what I need to explicitly state, regardless of the risks:  We need a new World Religion, skeuomorphically speaking.  One that recognizes and celebrates the rich spiritual history of this human condition as well as the remarkable knowledge we've gleaned as rational tool makers.  It's time.  As Sally J. Goener  so eloquently teaches, there is a Great Ordering Oneness in this universe; one that is knowable even to a modest species such as ourselves.  It's high time we find organizing principles that will allow us to transcend the "us vs. them" nature of mankind.  And it's software -- it's global telecommunications, processing power stamped with Moore's Law, standard protocols and the digital amber of software in a vast, natural, networked Telecosm -- that will help us to knit together this tapestry of truth such as to allow us to not only cope, but to blossom.  If there's hope for humanity, it's in software.  The missionary zeal I feel becomes more acute each day -- every time I speak, every time I learn, every time I commune with a developer, or a journalist, or a cab driver.  We need a religion that recognizes not only our past, but our potential.  And that now becomes my message and my mission.  God bless us, each and every one -- and help us come together in understanding and joy.