I didn’t realize over the weekend how spotty my reception was until we came back down the mountain and my phone started ringing with calls encouraging me to buy this or that and my messages started to buzz to alert me to upcoming Cyber Monday deals and breaking news alerts. Normally. I don’t notice how many times throughout the day because it is just a part of every day, but coming back into constant connection was jarring.
My Master’s Degree was in Literacy and in particular digital literacy. We were entering the teaching profession when technology was changing our students and our classrooms as a rapid pace. I am extremely grateful for the foresight of the professors in my program who saw that we needed to be prepared to answer questions from students as well as teach students how to find reliable sources in the midst of the overflow of information.
Those discussions were over fifteen years ago and I fear that we have still not found ways to monitor who frequently we are bombarded with information and advertisement. There is so much information and almost constant connection no matter where you are and we are exhausted from attending to it all.
Even if you are someone who sets notifications to only appear from specific apps and who uses do not disturb frequently, finding peace and quiet is almost impossible. The world is weary of being “on” all the time.
In our weariness, perhaps exactly what we need is the quiet birth of the Christ Child. The one who was born not in the middle of activity and attention, but in the quiet of a manager tucked away in the night. Maybe our souls are calling out to us this Advent to rest and retreat so that our weary world can heal and our hearts can hope in the light of the world and the revelations this incarnation brings.