Musings of a Fragmented Mind

The beauty of the morning is the silent time when the rest of my family is still asleep. It's then that I get the few moments a day to myself that I need so much. It's a personal time of contemplation that makes everything just a little bit clearer for me.

Then, suddenly down the stairs and straight to the TV, bounds my son with all the noise and commotion that he brings along with him. Maybe only adults needs quiet time or maybe just this adult needs it.

When did the TV become our crutch? When there is nothing on it to satisfy our entertainment needs, we start to feel uncomfortable and then the family splits. One goes to the computer at the dining room table, another slips upstairs to the game room, and I retreat to a book that I have been trying to read for over a month. These days, our real family moments, good or bad, come in the car when we're driving somewhere.

"Mom," my son will ask, "What's your favorite movie?" or "Who's your favorite actor?" The questions start a conversation that leaves all of our minds stretching for answers. As much as we watch television, none of us even knows anymore. We are fragmented to a favorite du jour. Do I dare blame the television for that fragmentation or is it media in general?

Regardless of how we came to be fragmented, it seems that we are. This simply means that we have to pause and think about what matters to a generation of fragmented minds. Is pop culture the key to making connections? Do we mold ourselves or try to distinguish ourselves from it? That is really the question that believers have been asking for a while, isn't it? Some take the stance that we should leave all trappings of culture behind while others think we should integrate the culture into our ritual practices. I think we've been asking that question for hundreds of years, really.

I think that the key lies in listening. Listening for the beauty, listening for the pain, listening for the unusual. Whatever we find as we venture forward into our future, we need to practice the art of listening. That probably means having a little quiet time in the morning, but it also means that we have to filter the things we hear in such a way that we filter out what we need to keep. We filter out what matters and draw attention to it. We are the town criers of faith, hope, love, goodness, mercy, justice. We look for it, we point to it, and we shout it out to the fragmented world.

I started this post in the quiet of the morning, but now I hear a TV in the next room and a radio upstairs, but when I slip out the door, I tune my ears to another station. A station where the God of heaven and earth, wisdom and wonder, power and light helps me to defragment and listen a little closer to the things that are important.

So, here I go, ready to start the day, changing channels.