+ First, I kept thinking of the words St. Luke puts into Christ's mouth in chapter 12: "Then he turned to the crowd: "When you see clouds coming in from the west, you say, 'Storm's coming'—and you're right. And when the wind comes out of the south, you say, 'This'll be a hot one'—and you're right. Frauds! You know how to tell a change in the weather, so don't tell me you can't tell a change in the season, the God-season we're in right now." I grew up with the Revised Standard Version's: "Hypocrites you can read the signs in the sky but you cannot read the signs of the times!"
+The second were the gently prophetic words from a reggae Christmas song we've been playing this season that begins: "All I really, really want for Christmas is just to be a little more conscious..."
In yesterday's NY Times, Pico Iyer, wrote a feature article in the Travel section: "The Joy of Quiet." At the heart of his essay, Iyer notes:
Has it really come to this?
Internet rescue camps in South Korea and China try to save kids addicted to the screen.
Writer friends of mine pay good money to get the Freedom software that enables them to disable (for up to eight hours) the very Internet connections that seemed so emancipating not long ago. Even Intel (of all companies) experimented in 2007 with conferring four uninterrupted hours of quiet time every Tuesday morning on 300 engineers and managers. (The average office worker today, researchers have found, enjoys no more than three minutes at a time at his or her desk without interruption.) During this period the workers were not allowed to use the phone or send e-mail, but simply had the chance to clear their heads and to hear themselves think. A majority of Intel’s trial group recommended that the policy be extended to others.
THE average American spends at least eight and a half hours a day in front of a screen, Nicholas Carr notes in his eye-opening book “The Shallows,” in part because the number of hours American adults spent online doubled between 2005 and 2009 (and the number of hours spent in front of a TV screen, often simultaneously, is also steadily increasing).
(For the whole enchilada, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-quiet.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=pico%20iyer&st=cse
Now for most of my active life over the past 45 years ~ from the time I was first drawn to peace and justice commitments in the 60s ~ I have been more drawn to the "trickster" and foolish/playful side of peace-making than the hardcore political world. My friends have often called me the Pentecostal/Zen Buddhist/Hassidic monk: a little Bob Dylan, a little Bruce Springsteen, a little Thomas Merton and a whole lotta Kathleen Norris. But now, in reading Jaco Hamman's book, A Playfull Live, I've discovered the key reason when he states:
Whoever MUST play, cannot be play-full. The Hewbrew word for salvation, yasha, bassically means creating space, making room or being without compulsion...
The central paradox of the machines that have made our lives so much brighter, quicker, longer and healthier is that they cannot teach us how to make the best use of them; the information revolution came without an instruction manual. All the data in the world cannot teach us how to sift through data; images don’t show us how to process images. The only way to do justice to our onscreen lives is by summoning exactly the emotional and moral clarity that can’t be found on any screen.
MAYBE that’s why more and more people I know, even if they have no religious commitment, seem to be turning to yoga, or meditation, or tai chi; these aren’t New Age fads so much as ways to connect with what could be called the wisdom of old age. Two journalist friends of mine observe an “Internet sabbath” every week, turning off their online connections from Friday night to Monday morning, so as to try to revive those ancient customs known as family meals and conversation. Finding myself at breakfast with a group of lawyers in Oxford four months ago, I noticed that all their talk was of sailing — or riding or bridge: anything that would allow them to get out of radio contact for a few hours.
Other friends try to go on long walks every Sunday, or to “forget” their cellphones at home. A series of tests in recent years has shown, Mr. Carr points out, that after spending time in quiet rural settings, subjects “exhibit greater attentiveness, stronger memory and generally improved cognition. Their brains become both calmer and sharper.”
He also writes that: "Empathy, as well as deep thought, depends on neural processes that are inherently slow. The very ones our high-speed lives have little time for." I will be sharing more thoughts about what it means for me ~ and those in my community of faith ~ to start to embrace the "slow movement" as another aspect of our baptismal vows.
+ We promise to renounce the powers of evil as we desire the freedom of new life in Christ, yes?
+ We vow, by the grace of God, to follow the way of our Savior, to resist oppression and evil, to show love and justice in our lives, yes?
Let's see where this leads...
2 comments:
Amen. As a matter of fact, we will be fellow travelers, as this is another of my frontiers.
I am reminded of Umberto Eco's playful comparison of Macintosh and Windows computers in theological terms, and how, as he put it, the computers "impose a subtle hermeneutic" on their users.
I'm also reminded of the joke about the chemical engineer, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and computer programer driving in a car which suddenly stalls dead. Each offers their own idea of getting it going again from their perspective: chemical engineer suggests a problem with the gas mixture, etc. The computer programer brightly suggests that they simply exit the car and get back in again, then start it up.
Thanks, brother man!
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