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Tearing Down and Building up in the Kingdom
Since Jesus isn’t attached to the same things we are, he can take the God-view, which is about more than redeeming our individual lives. God means to redeem the world, which is going to require some m... -
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Forever Elsewhere
We say we turn to our phones when we’re “bored.” And we often find ourselves bored because we have become accustomed to a constant feed of connection, information, and entertainment. We are forever el... -
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A People Distracted by Distraction
From drugs and alcohol to TV and workaholism, we are increasingly a society that fulfills T.S. Eliot’s description of a people “distracted by distraction.” There is hardly a public menace we can name ... -
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Speaking and Listening
In 1963, the politician, ambassador, and one-time presidential candidate Adlai E. Stevenson addressed the students of Princeton University with a touch of humor. “I understand I am here to speak, and ... -
illustration
The Impact Noise Can have on Learning
Have you ever wondered the impact noise can have on our cognitive ability? Psychologist Arlene Bronzaft was curious to find out. Studying Public School 98 on the northern tip of Manhattan, Bronzaft fo... -
Quote
Modernity slowly weakened spirituality, by design and accident, in favor of commerce; it downplayed silence and mere being in favor of noise and constant action. The reason we live in a culture increa... -
Quote
Money cannot purchase joy. It buys temporary distractions. -
illustration
Dealing Effectively With Some Things
The American philosopher and psychologist William James once defined human attention as a “withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opp... -
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The biggest impediment to concentration is your computer's ecosystem of interruption technologies: IM, email alerts, RSS alerts, Skype rings, etc. Anything that requires you to wait for a response... -
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Targeting our Attention Gaps
Smartphones make it possible for the attention economy to target our little attention gaps as we transition between tasks and duties. Our attention may be slightly elastic enough to fill up every empt... -
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Adolescence and the Pings, Not Pong
Adolescents have been offered a license to post without any accompanying ethical framework. Is it fair to blame teens for misusing tools that didn’t exist in our childhood? If I had been given a phone... -
Quote
If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly t... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Mark 7:1-23
Context Ritual Purity The most important broad contextual issue to address with this passage is the concept of ritual purity, and the ways in which this served as a boundary and identity marker for ... -
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Peter Ustinov and the School Letter
Peter Ustinov, the British actor, director, and playwright, once received an indignant letter from the headmaster of his son’s school. The letter complained that his son frequently disrupted lessons b... -
Quote
Most of the proprietors of the commercial Internet have a financial stake in collecting the crumbs of data we leave behind as we flit from link to link—the more crumbs, the better. The last thing thes... -
liturgy
Gracious God, we confess that we do not
Gracious God, we confess that we do not always listen to your calling for us. Instead we carry on with our busy lives, not being mindful of your voice, calling us to live for more than ourselves. Plea... -
Quote
One of the dangers of living in a constant state of distraction is that we never go to the bottom of our pain, our sadness, our emptiness, which means we never find that rock-bottom place of the peace... -
lectionary
15th Sunday after Pentecost
Context Ritual Purity The most important broad contextual issue to address with this passage is the concept of ritual purity, and the ways in which this served as a boundary and identity marker for ... -
Quote
One of the dangers of living in a constant state of distraction is that we never go to the bottom of our pain, our sadness, our emptiness, which means we never find that rock-bottom place of the peace... -
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Many come to bring their clothes to church rather than themselves. -
illustration
6 Eye-Opening Statistics
65 percent of parents, ages 25-34, believe they check their phone too much. (56% of kids agree.) 31 percent of parents say they don’t set a good example with mobile device usage. (22% of kids agree.)... -
Quote
There is a danger that you will mislive—that despite all your activity, despite all the pleasant diversions you might have enjoyed while alive, you will end up living a bad life. There is, in other wo... -
liturgy
Good Father, we thank you for inviting
Good Father, we thank you for inviting us to your table. You invite us to your heavenly feast, but we don’t show up to the party. Rather, we ignore your invitation, we get distracted by other work we ... -
Quote
Distracted from distraction by distraction -
liturgy
Good, Good Soil based on the Parable of the Sower
Jesus, you sow yourself The Word of Truth, generously The Word of Life, graciously Defend us from the Evil One Who seeks to snatch us away Fortify us for hard times and costly discipleship That we m... -
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Nokia Phone Survey, 2013
The average person uses their cell phone every six minutes and checks their phone 150 times a day. -
liturgy
Come to the Table
In the midst of all you are facing Your burdens Your responsibilities Your hustle Hear the invitation “Come to the Table” In the midst of all you are facing Your longing Your ambition Your distractio... -
illustration
The Poor in Spirit at an Oregon State Correctional Institution
In June 2024, I (A. J.) had the opportunity to visit the Oregon State Correctional Institution in Salem, Oregon, to meet with a group of inmates who had read one of my recent books. The experience was... -
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This Blasted Smartphone!
Tony Reinke does a great job capturing the deep ambivalence many of us feel about our smartphones in this short excerpt: This blasted smartphone! Pesk of productivity. Tenfold plague of beeps and ... -
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How Good to Center Down!
How good it is to center down! To sit quietly and see one’s self pass by! The streets of our minds seethe with endless traffic; Our spirits resound with clashing, with noisy silences, While some...
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