Last night I was laying down with my son Keating and we were both reading.
Keating said, “can you believe I am on page 400 in my book?”
First off, I don’t know if I have ever read a 400 page book…but heres to future goals.
So I asked back, “how much do you have left?”
He replied with a sound of sadness in his voice, “30 pages…but I don’t want it to end.”
I get it. There is something about reading an incredible book, or watching a great film, or TV series, or experiencing an unbelievable meal, or indescribable vacation…you don’t want it to end.
In our house, we experience “tension” this time of year. This tension arises because it’s early November. We’ve just had Halloween, All Saints’ Day, and Veterans Day. We still have pumpkins everywhere, cinnamon muffins, and lovely fall décor…and yet four-fifths of my family (including Brittany, our dog) are ready to barrel toward Christmas.
I am not in the majority here.
As a kid, we often went to Colorado for Thanksgiving, packing all our Christmas albums. On the way out, we’d listen to all sorts of different music. But on the way back? It was Christmas music all the way. It was so ingrained in me to wait—Santa passing by Macy’s on Thanksgiving morning was the official green light for Christmas. To skip over Thanksgiving feels like bypassing a rich tradition that deserves its moment.
Several years ago, Sarah and I shared one account for our phones. That way we could share music and pictures and everything else stored on our phones…to be honest, we didn’t realize almost two decades ago that all of our life would be on our phones…that didn’t even occur to us.
The problem with sharing one account is, occasionally, for no reason we completely understood, some of our texts, calendars, emails and other things would show up on the other persons phone without going through a series of menu options to change that or stop it from happening.
We maybe didn’t send the initial text or send the initial email or initial calendar invite and yet, we had this bit of information that was intended for someone else and we were seriously confused.
Have you ever tried to understand a conversation with only reading one side of it?
Whether it is sitting there listening to someone talk on their phone, but have no idea what the person on the other end is saying.
It is very confusing.
In 2015, the Kansas City Royals went to the world series and won. That was the last time they played in the post season. Until this year.
In 2017, the Kansas City Chiefs went 4 and 0 to start their season. Despite their post season success, that was the last time they started so strong. Until this year.
Tonight, the Chiefs and the Royals are playing at the same time.
For those of us from Kansas City…our attention will be divided. We will all spend an evening with split screens.
But no matter if you are from KC or not, we live in a world that is so distracted, attention divided between so many things. Most of our “time saving” devices and efficiency technology has actually caused us to waste more time in meaningless distractions and never give anything our full attention.
As I’m writing this, my computer keeps giving me notifications about “tips” to use it better, calendar and news alerts, and my phone updates me about weather, amazon deliveries, and my sons’ grades at school.
And…I have most of my notifications and updates always turned off because I get easily distracted.
I think we are likely getting so used to distractions, that many of us rarely have times when we aren’t staring at a screen (or multiple ones at the same time), multitasking, thinking about other concerns and worries, and giving nothing our full attention. This is often knowingly or unknowingly done to make ourselves feel productive, accomplished, happy, fulfilled…or maybe disconnected or distracted from reality or formulate our own reality.
As C.S. Lewis says,
“Human history is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”
The other day we were at our kitchen table and I asked who wanted to pray before breakfast on Sabbath. My son, Keating, said, “I will”. He then launched into The Lord’s Prayer. The whole thing…
“Our Father…Thy Kingdom come, they will be done…Forgive us our trespassesas we forgive those who trespass against us…”
He ended and we all said, “Amen.”
He then started again…
“Our Father…Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done…Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors…”
My son, prayed The Lord’s Prayer twice, so that he could include two of the predominant ways people say that prayer in the Christian tradition. How ecumenical and welcoming he is.
As you likely know, Sarah and I love movies. We really love great storytelling, great characters, great dialogue, and a movie that really stirs you. When Braveheart came out, the epic cinematic fictionalized historical drama that portrays Scottish warrior William Wallace in the war of Scottish independence against England, the powerful line shouted by William Wallace that got repeated over and over again,
“They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!”
Then just a year later, a very similar movie, Independence Day, the epic cinematic fictionalized drama that portrays an eclectic group of people who assemble in Nevada in the war of independence against extraterrestrials, the oddly similar line shouted by the president Thomas Whitmore,
“We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!”
A movie about aliens doesn’t hit quite the same way…but no matter, those lines are meant to pump people up, to get them excited, to lead the audience and the characters in the movie to fight with power.
