How often do you find yourself caught between a pair of strong, yet diametrically opposed desires? For example:
- Have cake? Eat cake?
- Exercise body? Veg out?
- Shave? Cultivate trendy stubble?
- Spend? Save?
- Blog? Think about blogging?
- Rock? Hard place?
This mental impasse happens to me at least once a day. I ponder the features and benefits of Option A – find myself drawn strongly in its direction – and then immediately turn my attention to Option B…
… and then fall in love all over again.
Most of the time I resolve my stalemate by sitting down with a spoon and a big tub of ice cream and burying myself up to the elbows.
Today, however, I find myself caught in no-man’s-land once again with no visible escape hatch and no available answers.
Today I am helplessly caught between (A) a drive to be well informed about current affairs, and (B) a yearning to remain blissfully ignorant of them.
If you have watched the news on TV, read it in a newspaper (kids, you’ll need to go ask your grandparents what a newspaper is),or heard the news on a radio, you know exactly what I mean.
War, violence, hatred, and brutality abound. And that’s just here in my NEIGHBORHOOD!
I used to think of politics as an intellectually entertaining spectator sport… the arena where great ideas vied for my attention and allegiance. These days, however, civil political discourse seems to be as dead as the newspapers that once reported on it.
On the one hand, it seems irresponsible to choose to walk around in a state of willful ignorance. On the other hand, I have an active and curious mind that I believe God fully intended me to use!
And now, in my new status as a retired guy, precious little stands in the way of me binge-watching CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN… maybe a little Fox News now and then… with NPR on in the background ALL DAY LONG!
But honestly, it seems as if I can feel my soul eroding a little bit whenever I try to pay a moment’s attention to the news about events shaping my nation and community.
What’s an intellectually curious human to do?
Maybe this time, instead of pulling out the mint chocolate chip and eating myself into a dairy-induced coma, I’ll try something different. Maybe I’ll try…
… stopping.
… inhaling deeply,
… exhaling.
… listening.
Listening, for example, to the voice of 1 Corinthians 13:2 where the writer tells me, “… if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”
So maybe it is time to take stock and realize I will never fully understand everything that is happening around me in the world today.
Maybe I have to ‘fess up and admit that one of the reasons I tune in to all this news is so I can work up a little righteous indignation… indignation that helps me feel empowered when I shake my fist at the man on the screen and tell him how wrong he is (and – in contrast – how right I am).
Maybe my current torn-ness is God’s way of telling me I ought to pay attention to the things that REALLY matter in his kingdom.
Maybe it is time to spend more time working on my capacity to LOVE instead of my capacity to STAY CURRENT.
Maybe. Just maybe.
What do YOU think?
Russellings of the Spirit 
We watch very little news, especially the kind of current events we can do nothing about. As the election gets closer, we will be paying more attention so we can vote responsibly. Meanwhile, the “news” reported may be real or fake, and frankly I don’t have time now to do the research required to see what’s really going – things that I can’t change anyway. I agree with you, that it’s better to focus on our own capacity to love, through talking to God and listening to Him (prayer and Bible reading) and then putting what we know into practice. If everyone did that, we would see a different world, one with a lot more good news.
AMEN that. In fact, my new morning practice – beginning today and based on my reflections from this blog – is to systematically read through each of the four gospels. When I get to the end of John, I’ll just go back to the beginning of Matthew. I don’t think any of us can ever have too much Jesus!
Good plan, Russ. I’m guessing emphasis on the latter (i.e. love) will have far more real impact on the world.