I had this idea that I would fast from media after 10:30 at night. But I can't seem to get my work finished before midnight. The biggest problem is being distracted by articles and videos that I get directed to by a variety of newsletters in my email. A few of these are important - information about upcoming changes at the kids' school (the high schoolers are finally going back two days a week despite the best efforts of the teachers' unions to keep them home longer), information about upcoming changes at the college where I teach (students are back on campus and some classes are starting in person, while others remain hybrid and some are being moved outside), information about the college where the older boys are going (I let them track that for the most part), and information about bills due, etc. Others are not so important or not important at all. They are just distractions.
Which is what I really need to fast from.
Not that what I'm reading is upsetting. The opposite: It is interesting, fascinating, thoughtful. I did turn off Facebook for Lent. These articles are usually tangentially related to what I'm teaching or what I'm interested in - articles about books and art and nature and child rearing. Sometimes I end up shopping for books mentioned or looking at destinations described. I spent hours looking at content on this website: Art and Theology, thanks to a tip from my sister. My email is full of newsletters from good organizations offering quality content and interesting webinars and online lectures and thoughtful articles. I spent way too much time reading transcripts from OnBeing the other night, for example. The pandemic has created an avalanche of online access to events and lectures that used to be inaccessible. Accessibility is great! Except when it is overwhelming.
I'm actually a tired of reading other people's words. I'm tired of thinking "Maybe I should turn in to that lecture." (even if I usually don't). There are lot of good things out there, but they take time and energy away from other good things.
If sin is disordered love, attachments that supersede the loves that we should be nurturing - like love of God and neighbor, most importantly husband and children, - then acting like I love all of this art and knowledge out there is a disordered attachment. It's sinful. This may seem like loading myself up with guilt and shame or watering down the meaning of sin, but really it's just acknowledging that I need to turn away, turn off the computer, shut the book or the magazine, and move on. On the days when I do orient myself towards other activities - spending time with the kids or friends, gardening, doing a project, even just cleaning - I usually feel more rested at the end of the day even if I've been busier. Time is a gift, and I have squandered a great deal of it. So now I'm turning this off and going to try again to reorient love in the right direction.
1 comment:
I am needing to pull back from Facebook, again -- I took the app off my phone, but the Texas weather pulled me back in as I tracked updates from friends -- but early in lockdown times I realized that I was not going to watch that seminar, or do that craft, or take those classes, and have been mostly untempted by such content. But I really like your point about disordered loves being loves in the wrong place, and ah, do I feel that. It's the project of a lifetime to use time wisely, and I often think of Dante's souls racing around the cornice of Sloth in Purgatory, chanting, "Let not the precious time be lost!" And lots and lots of precious time has been lost, with precious little to show for it. Good thing there's a lot of Lent left!
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