background noise

Tim Challies has a great post on technology and its role in our lives. The whole thing is worth reading, but here is an excerpt to get you started.

In our culture we have allowed ourselves to become notoriously busy. And all the time, while we are busily going through life, there is a great deal of “noise” in the background of our lives. It may be music that plays when we drive, when we work and when we play. It may be a television that is turned on every time we have a few minutes to spare. Perhaps when we find fifteen empty minutes between picking the kids up from school and beginning to cook dinner we watch an episode of Judge Judy or catch a re-run of The Simpsons. The background noise may be a Blackberry that constantly beeps and buzzes as it receives emails or stock quotes, even when we are far away from the office. It may be a cell phone that keeps customers or employees in contact with us even on weekends and holidays.

It seems to me that, as society continues to move in its current direction, and as we become ever more “wired,” Christians have to be increasingly deliberate about moderating and perhaps removing some of this ever-present background noise. If we are to be thinking people, people who think deeply and deliberately about spiritual matters, we simply cannot allow our lives to be overshadowed by the noise of technology.

Does silence make you fidgety like it does me? We did a spiritual disciplines book last year in our Bible study and when we got to the discipline of “silence” I had more than mild discomfort with the exercise. Maybe my discomfort is an indicator that this is an area where I really need to work for a while. I can’t do a lot today about all the places that I have to go and the things that I have to do, but I can turn off the noise in between stops.