by the Rev. Ryan Boettcher

I came across this trending article yesterday (ironically, or perhaps prophetically) on the day that I was announced as the new social media manager for the diocese. A job in which, in some ways, I am supposed to cultivate this kind of “distraction” that Andrew Sullivan wrote about. Well played, Andrew.

So with some level of trepidation, I highly encourage you to be “distracted” and read this article:

My Distraction Sickness…And Yours, by Andrew Sullivan

It is very good in so many ways. In it, Sullivan laments the ways in which a great many of us are constantly distracted by our “always-wired world.” We live with our heads down in our smartphones, constantly connected to the virtual world of the internet and social media.

And for those of us in C4SO, we rely, at some level, on these forms of virtual communication if we are going to connect with one another. For all of our strengths as a diocese, I certainly grieve the fact that many of our relationships cannot be local and face-to-face. The kind of relationships that help us connect to our humanity.

My hope is that our diocesan social media connections wouldn’t replace these type of connections that you all have in your communities. If you don’t have local relationships with other priests or pastors, seriously, go seek them out. Find encouragement, support, connection with real humans.

My hope is that if you are “sick” from distraction, you will see this as an invitation to log off of social media for a season. Maybe a long season, if need be.

I hope that our interactions on social media can be ones of encouragement and support, of meaningful connection that brings us closer to our own humanity and not further away from it. The kind of connection that longs for the day when we can meet and chat over a meal together. (Hopefully we can all connect at the Clergy Conference in January!)

This article immediately reminded me of a passage from T.S. Eliot’s “Ash Wednesday” poem:

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.

 

Featured Image is from the original article linked in this post.

Illustration by Kim Dong-kyu

Based on: Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, by Caspar David Friedrich (1818).