The other day I was in a store browsing through the computer department. As I was looking at a laptop computer, one of my fellow customers struck up a conversation with me. “I have a laptop at home that is just four years old. “He said. “My son tells me it’s a “dinosaur” that needs to be replaced. Can you imagine, it’s still new in my book, but my son insists that it must go?” Before I could even reply to the man, his son approached and said, “Let me show you what you need to buy to replace that old computer.” “But I’m just getting to know that computer!” the man protested. As I watched all of this unfold I began thinking how our whole culture is becoming disposable. If something is no longer “new” or “the latest” we dump it and look for a way to replace it. I’ve seen people do this with things that are quite valuable and still in remarkably good shape, yet they are no longer the “cutting edge” item, and therefore have to go. Come to think of it, I’ve seen this same attitude in the way some folks treat people as well. I spent some time with a young woman who had been hospitalized after a failed suicide attempt. As I listened to her, it became apparent that life had become too burdensome to her because, as she put it, “I couldn’t keep up with all that my friends wanted me to be”. I asked her what she meant. She said, “If you don’t dress like everyone expects you to, if you don’t like the same music, or think the same way, or hang out with the right people, well, you are very quickly left behind. I just couldn’t do it anymore, and I didn’t want to spend my life being lonely all the time. Being dead seemed like a better alternative to me.” Isn’t that a sad commentary on life today? Often people are treated like yesterday’s computer – discarded and abandoned. Yet, Jesus has called all of us to be people of compassion and love. We have been called to “look deeper” for the beauty and strength that is hidden deep within each person given to our care. We can never be true friends of Jesus if we dismiss people out of hand just because they are no longer “cutting edge” or measure up to our preconceived notions of a person’s value. To put it another way, there are no “dinosaurs” in God’s kingdom.