What We Really Want, and Need
My wife, Amparo, and I were at a restaurant recently when a family that included a teenaged girl entered. She and family members were walking to their table, accompanied by the maître de, when I noticed that the girl was wearing headphones – not the small ones that fit in the ear but large ones that included a flashing light to let you know that they were in use.
Was she sending a message? I wondered. And was the message that not only did she not want to engage with family members, but wanted them – and anyone else who might try to speak to her – to know as much?
If I interpreted the situation correctly, I have to acknowledge that it’s not only teens who are “plugged in” to their cell phones or other electronic devices when they could be engaging with real, live people. We’ve all experienced it among friends, family and strangers. We seem to be in a pandemic of distraction from “real life.”
Avoiding the Deeper Issues
“Where our culture is particularly dangerous, I feel,” writes theologian Ronald Rolheiser in his little book, Prayer, Our Deepest Longing, “is in the way it can perpetually shield us from having to face the deeper issues of life: faith, forgiveness, morality and mortality. It can constitute, as theologian Jan Walgrave has said, ‘a virtual conspiracy’ against the interior life by keeping us so entertained, so busy, so preoccupied, and so distracted that we lose all focus on the deeper things.
“We live,” Rolheiser continues, “in a world of instant and constant communication, of mobile phones and e-mail, of IPods that contain whole libraries of music, of television packages that contain hundreds of channels, of malls and stores that are open 24 hours a day, of restaurants and clubs that stay open all night, of sounds that never die and lights that never go out. We can be amused, distracted, and catered to at any time.”
Not So Great?
Ok, so we know all this, and isn’t it great? Well, yes, to a point.
But not if we never, or hardly ever, turn off the TV and the phone, shut down the computer or silence the iPad and Apple Watch, to engage with others – or just as important – to engage with ourselves and with God, then, it’s not so great.
To search for God, we need time for solitude, thought, prayer and study.
In my experience, you have to purposefully set aside a time for this engagement, or it will never happen. That’s because our connection to electronic devices, as well as to “stuff,” and preoccupation with its pursuit, is like a narcotic. Many of us are hooked, and addictions can be obstacles in the search for God.
Why? Because we can’t be open to God’s “voice” if our ears and minds are filled with distractions.
I find that early morning is a good time for self-reflection, meditation, reading Scripture – all the best ways to connect with God. Of course, other times might be best for you, and you can also connect with God through others, through nature, through science and other pursuits, but you can’t do any of that if you are continually “plugged in.”
Most Important in Search for God
If I were asked about the most important activity that electronic and other distractions hamper – the one thing that is most important in the search for God – I would have to say prayer. It’s essential. And to do it like Jesus did, you have to make quality time for it.
Jesus, it could be argued, was fulfilling one of his most consequential missions when he answered the disciples’ request, “Lord, teach us to pray.”
“What they wanted,” writes Rolheiser, “was Jesus’ power to be big-hearted, to love beyond his own tribe, to love poor and rich alike, to live inside of charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, long-suffering, fidelity, mildness, and chastity, despite everything within life that mitigates against these virtues.”
And despite our pursuit of stuff, recognition and power, isn’t this what we really need and want in life?
