April 15, 2017
The Age of Noise (excerpt)
by Bishop James D. Conley, Lincoln Neb.
Originally published on February 10, 2017 by the Southern Nebraska Register, the newspaper of the Diocese of Lincoln. Published again by Columbia, the magazine published by the Knights of Columbus, April 2017. http://www.kofc.org/en/columbia/detail/the-age-of-noise.html
“IF WE ARE TO LIVE AS CITIZENS OF HEAVEN, WE MUST SEEK SILENCE AND CONTEMPLATION AMID THE WORLD’S DISTRACTIONS”
We are, today, awash in information, assaulted, often, with tweets and pundits analyzing the latest crisis in Washington, or difficulty in the Church, or serious social, political or environmental issue. It can become, for many people, overwhelming.
To be sure, we have a responsibility as faithful Catholics to be aware of the world and its challenges, and to be engaged in the cultural and political affairs of our communities. We cannot shirk or opt out from that responsibility. But we are living at a moment of constant urgencies and crises, the “tyranny of the immediate,” where reactions to the latest news unfold at a breakneck pace, often before much thought, reflection or consideration. We are living at a moment where argument precedes analysis, and outrage, or feigned outrage, has become an ordinary kind of virtue signaling – a way of conveying the “right” responses to social issues in order to boost our social standing.
The “age of noise” diminishes virtue, and charity, and imagination, replacing them with anxiety, and worry, and exhaustion.
The Lord didn’t make us for this kind of noise. He made us for conversation, for exchange and communion. And our political community depends upon real deliberation: serious debate and activism over serious subjects. But the Lord also made us for silence. For contemplation. For quietude. And without these things anchoring our lives and our hearts, the age of noise transforms us, fostering in our hearts reactive and uncharitable intemperance that characterizes the media and social media spaces which shape our culture.
The age of noise is grinding away at our souls.
An anonymous 2nd century Christian disciple wrote a letter to a man named Diognetus, telling him something about the lives and practices of early Christians. “There is something extraordinary about their lives,” he wrote. “They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. ... They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven.”
To be citizens of heaven, we must be detached from the noise of this world. We must detach ourselves from the news cycles, and social media arguments, and television pundits, which inflame our anger, or provoke our anxiety, or which shift our focus from the eternal to the fleeting and temporal.
Chris Stefanick, a wise speaker and author, wrote recently that we should “read less news,” and “read more Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”
We’ll be free from the anxiety and worry of the “age of noise” when times of prayer, and silence, are regular facets of our day. We’ll be detached from false crises and urgencies of the culture of outrage when we … entrust the affairs of this world to the Lord.
The noise of our culture is designed to disturb and frighten us, and to distract from the unchanging and ever-loving God. But in silent prayer and contemplation…, we can turn down the noise, and the Lord himself can calm our hearts and renew our minds. To live extraordinary lives, as citizens of heaven before all else, it’s time that we turn down the “age of noise.”
“You need to know who you are. Until you know in your heart that you are a beloved son of God, you are just going through the motions. The only way you are going to come to know your true identity is to be silent long enough so that God can tell you.”[1]
“Be a man who listens more than he talks. This begins with your relationship with God. Never leave your prayer time without giving time to silence.”
Excerpts from "Be A Man!" by Fr. Larry Richards. Ignatius Press, 2009.
“My past was the present. And my future will be the present. The present moment is the only reality I ever experience.”
Excerpt from "The Precious Present" by Spencer Johnson. Doubleday 1992.
For Reflection:
What are the noises in your life that distract you from knowing God’s will for you? From responding to His call?
If someone were to describe how you live would he or she say that you live like a “citizen of heaven”?
If there was one thing you could do to turn down the volume what would it be?