The Remedy for Chaos (Observation of the Week)
1. Another Christmas; Another Night of Hope
“For a child is born to us, a son is given to us;
upon his shoulder dominion rests.
They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero,
Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.”
I heard these words again at another Midnight Mass, another midnight marking the beginning of another church year (or the end of another secular year, whichever you celebrate.) This year, these words vibrated in my bones, nearly shook the earth under me. I wanted those vowels and consonants to manifest, to take on flesh and bone, to come riding into the church building on a white horse and take his place in front of the altar. I imagined the words in all their glory, radiating shards of light through the tiny clouds of incense.
The older I grow, the more I realize just how unrelenting the chaos of the world is, how it begs for an incarnate Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace to put it out of its misery. This is a grief observed, but grief observed lays the foundation for hope. Whether you’re a person of faith or not, this is an unassailable truth.
2. A Short Story
Sometimes, the best short stories don’t have many words.
A Life Examined: The Death of Stories
“The average Instagram user spends 28 minutes each day reading content on the platform,” the speaker said before pausing to let the statistic sink into the collective conference conciousness. “By contrast, that same user spends only 11 minutes reading in other mediums, including #books.” He, of course, did not hyperlink the comment, but my brain supplied the missing hashtag. This is what brains do in our increasing digital age, in our exile from an embodied experience.
He was a researcher, and so he was careful not to draw lines too bright. Correlation is not causation he said, and yet, there was a direct correlation between increasing smartphone use and incidents of depression, anxiety, and self-harm. And as he shared of the evolution of a species—from homosapiens to homoiPhonus—I couldn’t help but wonder: What does this mean for the human story? Put better: What does this mean for human stories?
Stories—throughout human history, they’ve formed the bedrock of who we are. We’ve drawn them on cave walls, scribbled them on parchments, and collected them in books. Those stories have been the foundation for our spiritual exploration. But in this new age of micro-blogging and what can only be described as digital cave painting, I wonder, are our new platforms strong enough to shoulder the weight of our stories?
Are they robust enough to support our need for literature—fiction and non-fiction alike? Will the storytelling masters—the modern Hugos, Chestertons, and Shelleys—be forced to ply their craft on digital platforms? Will they hide among our cousin’s family photos, the quick pics from the office new year’s party (the one where Steve wore that bra on his head), and the selfies of the insta-fluencers with the duck lips who photoshopped themselves into a Florentine backdrop? And will these short-form digital stories be of the same warp and weft of the stories we used to contemplate in the great (or even the almost good) books?
How are you preserving stories? Do you consume more insta-information than written content? If so, ask yourself: Does that trend lend to my longterm health and the longterm health of my community?
***WAKE UP WITH ME***
THE BOOK OF WAKING UP —a book on addiction, attachment, and the Divine Love—launched TUESDAY so order a copy or ten at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookish (my favorite indie bookseller). Then, forward this post to a friend and ask them to read along.
Stories are our Teachers
The church baptistery was locked, but the gate slats were just wide enough for me to slip my hand through and shoot a blind photo of the ceiling with my cellphone.
"Go ahead, she said."
I took the photo, pulled my hand back through, and saw the story of Christ painted on the ceiling in burnt desert colors.
The mural is painted just above the baptistery, the place where the child is held, head heavenward as the priest pours water over her hair.
"The first thing the baby sees during her baptism is the Christ-story, from birth to death," she said. "It’s the first thing she sees as she enters the church. And,” she said, leaning in, “this is how the church used stories for 1,500 years, sharing Christ with even the most illiterate."
We are born into this world craving mother’s milk. It is the first draught of life. The second draught is experienced in the stories we’re told in the silent places, places like the breast, the crib, and baptismal font.
***WAKE UP WITH ME***
THE BOOK OF WAKING UP —a book on addiction, attachment, and the Divine Love—launched TUESDAY so order a copy or ten at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookish (my favorite indie bookseller). Then, forward this post to a friend and ask them to read along.