C.J. Burton for Newsweek
On Wednesday, we enter into Lent, a time of holy listening, a time of renunciation and sacrifice, a time of expectation, a time of spiritual connection. It should be a time of lessened interruption, a time of greater focus, but for most people, even people observing Lent, it will be just as fractured and distracted as the lives we lead from day to day. I could cite lots of reasons for that, but this Lent I’m going to focus simply on one: electronic interruptions of our lives.
In the past few weeks, I’ve talked with a couple of folks who referred to their BlackBerrys as “CrackBerrys” and to Facebook as “Crackbook,” and I know very well what they’re talking about. Although I haven’t really embraced the texting and 24-7 connection of Blackberrys and similar devices, I do check e-mail compulsively, and Facebook every few minutes, it seems, and I think I understand on those days when I don’t seem to get anything of substance accomplished what is happening—that everytime I get on a roll, I am interrupted—or interrupt myself—and wind up back where I started. Or before it.
Newsweek ran an article last week worrying about President Obama’s decision to keep (and use) his Blackberry:
And a great cry arose from all across the land: in business offices where managers flashed back to important details they had missed during meetings; in cubicles where wage slaves recalled the countless hours lost trying to figure out what they were doing just before the interruption; at power-lunch spots from Manhattan to Malibu where patrons mourned the relationships they had sundered with their habit; in homes where spouses seethed over the third party in their bed; in labs where scientists studied the impact of technology on thinking; on train platforms where commuters wistfully recalled the days when they spent their wait mulling, pondering and daydreaming. That cry, uttered in response to the news that President Obama was getting to keep his beloved BlackBerry, sounded like this:
Uh-oh.
The Newsweek article really just told me what I already knew: that when we allow electronic devices and other such interruptions to rule our schedules, they affect the way we process information and formulate ideas. In short, it’s really hard to be creative when someone texts you every few minutes; in fact, the article says that typically it requires us fifteen minutes to recover our equilibrium and get back to where we were before the interruption.
I believe it. I recently had to ask someone to refrain from texting me, because the interruptions felt like—well, interruptions. (To someone who likes texts, they may be welcome, but they’ll still be interruptions in a larger sense—interruptions of peace, of the thinking processes). And I know that one of the reasons it has been so worthwhile for me to go away to another place (to New Mexico, or Canterbury, or someplace else) to write is that I can’t be compulsively trying to be in contact with people—I actually have to focus on solving the problems in front of me.
So I’m going to take what feels to me like a radical step this Lent. Instead of giving up Diet Coke or chocolate or meat—all of which I have done (with some success, I might add) for the duration of Lent, I’m going to ration my electronic access. I’m not going to check Facebook every 20 minutes to see if anybody wants to be my new Facebook friend. I’m not going to check my e-mail every five minutes to see if a lucrative speaking engagement or some such thing has found its way into my mail. And, to my girlfriend’s chagrin, I’m sure, I’m going to turn off the ringer of my phone and check it occasionally, but I’m not going to let it dictate my day (actually, this I pretty much do already), so any texts that come in (God help them) will be read on my own schedule, not theirs.
Why not cold turkey total withdrawal? Well, I’ll confess that there’s a certain amount of business and networking I only do on Facebook and through e-mail; part of this job of being an “author” involves being in contact with people, as much as I sometimes wish it didn’t. So giving it up entirely would mean not doing part of my job for the next 40 days.
But bringing this problem to my awareness—and now, to yours—is a way of doing two things.
First, cutting back on the electronic noise should restore a little bit of quiet and maybe even concentration to a season of the year in which we are supposed to be seeking such things.
And second, I hope that this focus will encourage me to have some more and better live interactions with the people I love that could also be a part of my spiritual journey.
So, ironically as it may seem, I’m going to announce this Lenten initiative now in my blog.
And in a Facebook group.
And I look forward to reporting to everyone how it works.
You know if this is something that would be of benefit to you–and what you might need to change to create some holy space for yourself.
May you have a holy Lent, whatever you choose to do or not to do, to give up or to take on.
God will be with you in any case.
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