In Touch ... Too Much

We live in a world of being in touch. We like to be in touch with our world. Our world is a world of sounds and information moving, at times, swirling around us. There’s music to keep us entertained. Our computers serve up endless information about almost any topic. The revolution of being in touch allows us to chat, to e-mail, to tweet, to visit on face pages. Even our vacation photos are instantly available for review and editing. The streaming of pictures does not allow for the distance and breaking away that vacations once allowed.

As one commentator reported recently, we are more in touch and communicate instantly, but we are less in touch personally and intimately. We are awash in images, words, and data. Is all this “being in touch” really “too much”?

For our summertime enjoyment and spiritual growth could we develop a sense of being out of touch?

Summer Moratorium
A summertime moratorium might offer an inner journey. With all of our information about our world, our friends, and “living on the edge,” the turning off of the power, shutting off our devices and the dimming of bells and whistles might offer us an alternative vacation. All this is not so new. Vacation at root is about creating empty space, time, and place for growth and re-creation of ourselves. Such vacationing calls us to go where we have not gone for a long time – within ourselves.

As Catholics, we have a long tradition in our spirituality of “going on retreat.” More recently, such retreating is an art which goes unused, if not lost. In such retreating, we are able to step back, to pause, and to give some distance with the ordinariness of our lives. At first view, it seems like escape to step back and gain perspective. Do we step in or out of living as we take time for ourselves and for God?

If we take a look at our present constant communication, we see a world which is pretty surface and lacking in personal energy. In our busy and moving world of information, we hear and we send words, but do we enter into the world of relationship and imagination? Often enough we step back and away as the words and more words swirl around us and wash over us. We insulate ourselves from the constant cascade around us. Perhaps, we are more lonely in our constantly stimulating world.

Out of Step
In reading James Carroll’s new book Practicing Catholic, he writes about his mother’s description of his movement through life with others. She sang some lyrics to him in his childhood: everyone’s out of step but Jimmy. As he writes, he challenges us to reflect who is out of step…the others or me.

The summer invitation is to get out of step so that we know the rhythm and tunes of our lives. We can judge whether we’re in step or not. In

another sense, we can decide whether we prefer to move differently than all those other people. Summer time is a good time to retreat, to step out of line, to see things in a renewed and re-created mode.

Summer, with its corresponding Sundays in green at Mass, offers a slowdown. The slowdown is not to be anti-social or otherwise bizarre, but an opportunity to re-visit ourselves and to look for God within. Some may suggest what a crazy suggestion. Others will see such futile taking quiet prayer time as irrelevant and out of step. The wisdom of our Catholic spirituality, nonetheless, offers a long history of being in touch with God in our world.

Our usual life carries us along without our recognizing the drift and direction. Music, news, e-mail, texting, chatting, and tweeting carry us along. Even those who are not as IT-proficient, the rhythm of our culture carries us quickly along. After turning off our devices, how do we proceed to create empty space for ourselves and for God?

A Quiet Summer
In planning for your summer enjoyment and refreshment consider activities, times, and places, which can put us in touch with ourselves.

+ Pick a quiet time each day for yourself. The time needs to go along with a space just for you and God and nobody else.

+ Choose a scripture reading, not for instruction as much as for presence and comfort. Sit with the text, read. Enjoy.

+ Pick up a spiritual book, something more than self-help. Read little by little. Speed readers feel free to pause and waste time as words and themes attract you.

+ Start the day with daily Mass having read the readings before setting out in the morning. Savor the Lord’s presence as you encounter him at the Table.

+ Take a look at your life. Examine where you are and where you would hope to be. Be aware of your sinfulness. Be aware of your blessings.

+ With all of the above activities take time to breath, to be still, to be present to yourself. Waste some time with God within you.

Seems a little foolish? Not one to be wasteful with time? I can’t live without my information and constant chatter? Give it a chance and God might do the rest. By being less in touch via devices, we might find ourselves more in touch with re-created imagination. Such prayerful imagination may just bring us to God’s presence.

CDH