Enthusiastically, Dawn

Today I offer you an on ramp into my brain. You have been warned. Proceed at your own risk.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we got here. Here to where we are in this climate of chronic delusion. I think I have an answer. It’s not based on research, no- it’s just me thinking and telling about it.

The fact is, thinking is hard. Sometimes uncomfortable. Insights bring pain. Truth can hurt, but lies…they destroy everything they touch, not least of all, the ability to trust. We are living in a time when lies dominate the free thinking world. Surely free thinking is on the brink of being obliterated. But we are not cogs. Depending on who you ask. And on who is doing the asking.

I’ve been thinking about why people have zero tolerance for anything but their own rhetoric. But these days, it’s not even their own rhetoric. The regurgitation of information consumed and spewed out is common. In a different time what is now accepted was considered slanderous, abusive and intolerant. Slander and gossip have lost their impact completely. They are now normal. Unavoidable if you own a smartphone, use a computer or watch five minutes of television. Commercial advertising, political campaigns and promotions, and your e-mail inbox are host to abundant lies delivered right into your eye view. Some of them might not be outright lies, but many are based on a foundational lie…a lie that underlies the message communicated. Whatever is pitched or promoted in your inbox or the world will come back to what is believed about one thing. That is what is believed about who God is. The lie dismantling truth today is the same lie that was from the beginning and it comes from the same place. Or being. Depending on who you ask. Or who’s asking.

I’ve been thinking about how people are no longer comfortable with the slightest bit of awkwardness. The kind of awkwardness that used to be tolerable and expected when people who disagree could come together in real life, undistracted. In the time before the leech like things we call smartphones were latched onto the majority of humanity. A time when quietness was still possible.

I can still remember the beautiful, untethered freedom of a life without social media, and a phone that has become – in the eyes of many -a life (or death) line. I am grateful when my precious daughter lived her first five years of life, the only thing that consumed my eye view were her adorable ten toes and her intense brown eyes.

How quick people are to fill every moment with distraction. To avoid awkward moments in public with others- or in private by staring at a screen. Yes, one avoids a few minutes of discomfort but at the cost of any ability to tolerate what is basic to our human experience. Being able to be with oneself and their thoughts. Once we lose our ability to be alone with our own thoughts in quietness, we lose our ability to be with others in quietness. In awkward silences. And honesty.

I am thinking of how God speaks in the quietness. In the silent, sometimes thin places, God breaks into our quiet places. But what if we are never willing to offer Him our quiet moments? What if we fill every waking our with the sounds, sights and promises of the world- which offers no end of opportunity to buy, sell, create, promote, an endless bundle of nothingness. Oh, all of it sparkles for a season…but time is a non-negotiable commodity. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. It is the most valuable resource we have along with our attention. And what is our attention but a reflection of our soul.

The subtle, slick usurper of authority and freedom is available to everyone in our time. A smartphone is useful but also potentially a time thief extraordinaire. It has the power to cloud clear vision and deceive people into believing that they see clearly after all. It steals time, as if time were unlimited. Time, dear friend, is limited. We all have an expiration date. We all are on this side of eternity for a limited amount of time. The small gadget and it’s plethora of platforms pursuing your attention 24/7 has the power to rob you of your life. Literally. A Smartphone promises to deliver, but it’s not the kind of delivering we need.

I’ve been thinking about how that awkwardness I mentioned earlier, is crucially important and not to be avoided at all costs. Our capacity to be or not to be is threatened by the tiny tyrant carried by almost every person on the planet. One thing I learned a long time ago, is that it’s hard to dislike, never mind hate, a person you actually get to know face-to-face. Proximity brings a level of acceptance unattainable through screens- or distance. Oh, there is an illusion of closeness through online connections, and I am not saying that these are never valid and good. But I am saying, that we need to be with our discomfort with others and willing to be in the place of awkward regular, everyday table talk and conversations. We need to be open to the person on the side of us wherever we are. We need to be willing to see one another, listen to one another, and weep for one another- up close. The syndicated news has caused us to become numb to reality. None of us was ever meant to know all the news, in all the world, all the time. That is a God sized bite of knowledge too big for any of us. Why do we let our hearts try to absorb it. It’s soul crushing and also deceitful in it’s ability to give us a completely clear view of reality.

I’ve been thinking about how God chose to come close to his creation through Christ. How He determined to send a deliverer, who would be truth, light, salvation for all. How he set forth both the promise and the freedom to choose. How He said from the beginning that He himself would close the distance we created by our desire to pursue the one thing destined to destroy us. How a piece of fruit – and the allure of it caused a domino effect of events for all humanity that have led us full circle…and here we are.

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If you have made it this far, thank you for reading. I haven’t written this way in awhile…but here I am. Just me standing out on a limb, feeling exposed. Thanks for being here. I may write more on this, or maybe not. What do you think?

Somewhat still-

Enthusiastically, Dawn