Stepping away from the incessant immediacy of how we live today

Despite the daily distractions of digital life, we really need to pay attention to attentiveness, argues Mark Scarlata.

Mark Scarlata

Mark is a lecturer and priest. He’s the author of several books and his latest, Wine, Soil and Salvation, explores the use of wine throughout the Old and New Testament.

A corrugated sheet iron wall graffited in large blue letters that say 'All we need is more likes.'

Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash.

On a train from Cambridge to London, I sat down next to a smartly dressed woman who had her phone and laptop out on the small folding table. Of course, normal etiquette for early morning commuters is to maintain silence as much as possible, though this seems to be less and less the case these days. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, exhaled and tried to clear my thoughts for the day ahead. All was well until the woman’s phone notification interrupted my meditations. The loud Microsoft tune blared throughout the carriage but especially in my ear. I thought she would frantically reach for her phone and apologetically switch it to silent or vibrate but she didn’t.

After five more successive notifications I put in my noise-cancelling headphones but even they couldn’t stop the distracting tune from reaching my ears. I tried to read but couldn’t and then thought I’d at least send some emails, but the notifications kept coming. It felt like her phone went off about fifty times over a fifty-minute train ride. I’m probably exaggerating but the effect was the same in that I was so distracted (and exasperated!) that I couldn’t get anything done.

There is something about even the smallest distractions that prevent us from finding our rhythm. Whether we’re trying to accomplish a task, playing a sport, gardening, reading, or whatever it is, distractions keep us from being able to focus our attention and the sum of our thoughts on what it is we are trying to do.

With so many distractions in our lives we are left with little chance of finding healthy rhythms and may even feel overwhelmed with a sense of exhaustion.

In an essay on education, French philosopher Simone Weil writes,

‘Quite apart from explicit religious belief, every time that a human being succeeds in making an effort of attention with the sole idea of increasing his grasp of truth, he acquires a greater aptitude for grasping it, even if his effort produces no visible fruit.’

Her point is that intellectual and spiritual growth comes from an ability to focus our attention and to contemplate the things which we can comprehend and those which we are yet to understand. Progress is not simply about how much work we put in, or how much effort we put in, but how much attention we pay to all that we set out to do.

The difficulty in this digital age, however, is that we can struggle to find any kind of uninterrupted time in daily life. The internet and our devices have so permeated our lives that they create a world besieged by distractions to the point where life becomes merely a series of interruptions. Countless notifications, emails, social media or messaging apps all reduce our ability to concentrate for any significant length of time. With so many distractions in our lives we are left with little chance of finding healthy rhythms and may even feel overwhelmed with a sense of exhaustion.

In her Seen & Unseen article on ‘bed-rotting’, Lianne Howard-Dace writes of the recent trend of taking a day of self-care by staying in bed. She raises the important issue of sabbath rest and the biblical discipline of taking one day a week to cease from our work in the world. She also raises questions of how we might go about incorporating that rest into our lives. The discipline of keeping sabbath should also incorporate the practice of attention and cultivating our ability to be present with God and with others. This was the original rhythm of sabbath that God established in creation and when he later gave Israel the sabbath.

To inhabit sabbath time is to break from our daily routines, to cease from our work in the world so that we might find both mental and physical refreshment.

There are two key moments in the Bible that first describe the rhythm of sabbath rest. The first is in the beginning of Genesis when God creates the heavens and the earth in six days. He ceases from all his work on the seventh day when he consecrates time and rests. The second is the Exodus when God delivers the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt. He leads them through the Sinai Peninsula and establishes in them a new rhythm for life.

In the Exodus story we’re told that God is like a father caring for Israel his ‘firstborn son’ as the former slaves adjust to their newfound freedom. He provides them with manna, or heavenly bread, that sustains them in their forty years of wandering. The gift, however, is followed by a command that the people should gather manna for six days as they travel through the desert but on the seventh day they are to rest from all their work. The Lord will provide their bread for that day, but the people are to cease from all activity and rest.

It's hard to imagine how many distractions they faced trying to set up and take down tents whilst moving family, flocks and possessions across the desert. Yet God wants to give these former slaves a new pattern, a new rhythm of life that will refresh them. The backbreaking labour in Egypt that never ceased is now replaced by a rhythm of work and rest.

God establishes one day for his people to pause, to reflect and to turn their attention away from their work in the world to the beauty of the world they inhabit. As they cease from their work, they are able to be present with one another and attentive to the God who delivered them to freedom.

Jewish rabbi and professor Abraham Joshua Heschel writes:

‘The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time. To turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.’

To inhabit sabbath time is to break from our daily routines, to cease from our work in the world so that we might find both mental and physical refreshment.

To turn towards the mystery of creation on the sabbath and to experience God’s rest also requires that we turn away from distraction. The Israelites put down their work in the wilderness and the distractions of travel so that they could rest with one another. Though they didn’t have smartphones buzzing and beeping with notifications, I’m sure it was still a challenge to stop, to rest, and to be attentive to God’s holiness in time.

The Israelites celebrated sabbath rest together. Their consecrated time was a communal time of joy and celebration. This new rhythm given by God strengthened bonds in families and communities and brought a corporate sense of rest. By setting aside the concerns of work and the distractions of life, the Israelites became attuned to God and attuned to one another. This pattern for life, however, is sadly missing for many in our digital world today which can be a very lonely place for many.

We struggle to find a rhythm in our own lives because we can no longer be attentive amidst the distractions of our world.

Harvard sociologist Sherry Turkle’s compelling book, Alone Together, documents some of the experiences of young people who are always connected through social media and yet feel an immense sense of loneliness. She reflects on how digital technologies and social media affect our social lives and our ability to engage with each other face-to-face.

‘We fill our days with ongoing connection, denying ourselves time to think and dream. Busy to the point of depletion, we make a new Faustian bargain. It goes something like this: if we are left alone when we make contact, we can handle being together.’

A quick glance at the Pew Research Center’s survey insights on the effects of internet technologies offers eye-opening testimonies to some of their negative impacts. From your average person to experts in the field of neuroscience, many bear witness to the detriments the internet is having on their ability to think, concentrate and relate to one another. We may have had similar experiences. We struggle to find a rhythm in our own lives because we can no longer be attentive amidst the distractions of our world.

Keeping the Sabbath in the digital age is no easy task. The very thought of turning off our phones or stepping away from our devices might cause deep anxiety in some. But as we look back to the manna story, we recall the lessons that Israel learned in the wilderness ‒ to experience rest means to put down our work, to cease, and to trust in God’s provision.

Technology itself is not the problem. Technology that is used to manipulate our behaviour and leads to addictive tendencies is a problem. The question for many of us is are we allowing technology to destroy healthy rhythms in our lives that create anxiety and stress rather than rest? Sabbath offers a different form of behaviour modification. It establishes a ritual and a pattern in our lives to help cultivate attentiveness, rest, communion with others and worship.

This is not to say that we need to abandon all technology and go back to the agrarian ways of our ancestors (though sometimes I think I could use such a change!). It does, however, mean that the path to rest in the contemporary world requires us to step back and examine how technologies are influencing our physical and mental well-being. Practicing the sabbath opens our lives up to the rhythm God has established for his whole creation where we can stop, cease, and offer our deepest attention through a weekly ritual of celebrating holy time. We can step away from the incessant immediacy of doing everything now and take time to rest.

God never forces the gift of sabbath on people. Instead, he invites us to experience a new rhythm of life, a rhythm of work and rest where we are refreshed as we grow into the fullness of our humanity.

Establishing sabbath rituals takes time and effort. It’s hard work to rest well, especially when we’re constantly being pulled away by digital distractions. Yet the sabbath is the perfect antidote to a culture of now that can so easily consume us and keep us from experiencing God’s rest and refreshment. Sabbath offers us the rhythm of creation, the rhythm of the land and the rhythm that leads to wholeness and life.

Voting is much more than a token gesture

The political practice can capture something heavenly.

Joel Pierce

Joel Pierce is the administrator of Christ's College, University of Aberdeen. He has recently published his first book.

A sign reading 'polling station' stands by the entrance to a church.

Red Dot on Unsplash.

What makes an act sacred? Who it excludes, or who it welcomes? I found myself pondering this looking at the thin metal discs in the box I’d pulled off the shelf. I’d seen their tagged under glass at Scotland’s National Museum. Now, in an archive housed in the old kitchen of our rural community’s school, I had my first chance to touch what was once called “the open sesame to the bliss of so great a mercy”, a Church of Scotland communion token. Now items for collectors, filling drawers in local history museums, they once were the necessary payment for participation in one of the rites at the heart of Christian worship. They were the coin that verified that its holder’s faith and morals had been examined by an elder of the kirk and been found satisfactory.

Holy Communion, or the Eucharist as it is called in other churches, has its origins in the Last Supper, a meal of bread and wine Jesus shared with his disciples on the night before his crucifixion. Christians may disagree on the exact meaning of the meal, but all hold that it is, in some way, sacred and central to the Christian life and the recognition and celebration of Christian community. Communion tokens were but one example of a strategy that Christians have employed time and again to ensure that the mystery and sacrality of the meal is properly recognised: stopping the wrong sorts of people from participating in it. Ironically, in this we have often been much more discerning, or perhaps discriminating, than Jesus himself. The companions he chose to initiate the practice were a quarrelsome lot. They were mostly provincial fishermen more concerned with establishing their place in the new kingdom they imagined Jesus would establish after overthrowing the Romans than in participating in the meal with due reverence and seriousness.

All who came were for that day, in that room, in that act, equal. All who came were welcome. No one was turned away.

A year later, I found myself sitting behind a table in the rear of our community’s nursery. It was election day for the Scottish Parliament, and I had added polling clerk to the miscellany of part-time jobs I had taken after finishing my studies. We had all arrived early to ensure that we had time to wrestle enough string and cable ties together to secure the polling station sign around the ancient tree that marked the entrance of the nursery’s car park before polls opened at 7am. It was the first, and only time I have worked a sixteen-hour day, and my exhaustion at the end of it probably contributes to much of it being a bit of blur. What I do remember is the flow of people: mums in smart blouse and skirt combinations with kids in tow, fitting us in first thing before a stop by the childminder’s on the way to the office; tradespeople and farmers catching us between jobs, their trousers still spattered with paint or mud; scions of the local aristocracy; proud parents bringing teenagers to vote for the first time once the school day ended; a couple with a young baby, asleep for now, arriving just before closing, “We’re not too late are we?”.

My fellow poll workers, two old hands, knew most of our customers by sight. I knew a few, mainly other parents I had met during school and nursery drop-offs, but it didn’t matter as the rite was the same for all. They would approach the table, give us their name and address, and once a line was drawn through them on our roll, they were given the elements, two ballots, one to vote for their constituency Member of the Scottish Parliament, and another to vote for their preferred party. All who came were for that day, in that room, in that act, equal. All who came were welcome. No one was turned away. All that was needed was their word that they were who they said they were. Once the ballots were completed, we made sure they put each in the correct ballot and then they were out the door, on to the rest of their day.

Perhaps it is also true that sometimes, as much by accident as intention, we happen upon a form or practice in our shared political life which captures something of heaven.

As someone who did my first voting in the United States, I was a little stunned the first time I cast a ballot in the UK. Instead of having to use a black ink pen to assiduously fill in ovals on a ballot that felt like an extended multiple-choice test, all I needed to do was make a single penciled ‘X’ on a half sheet of coloured paper and make sure it wound up in the secure box. Was that it?

As I’ve reflected on that experience and had a few more goes of voting here, I have come to appreciate the elegance of the British approach. Instead of making the voter feel like an overwhelmed bureaucrat having to make a couple dozen underinformed choices on matters as diverse as national representatives, state laws, school boards, and local ordinances, the simplicity of the UK ballot means that what is centred is the social meaning of the act itself. We may be differentiated on all other days by class, culture, income, region, or football club allegiance, but in this act we come as close in our political practices as we ever do to touching something which Christians know, something which Christians sometimes see as they share Communion, that all these distinctions are ultimately passing, that beyond them each one of us is imbued with a dignity which the greatest worldly failure cannot take away from us and to which the greatest worldly success cannot add.

There is a school of thought in political theory which says that all our most important political concepts are actually secularised theological ones. They say, for example, that our exalted ideas of state sovereignty find their origins in our forebears’ understanding of God’s. Theologians draw various lessons from this approach, some worrying that what it really reveals is that we have made an idol of the state. They may be right, but perhaps it is also true that sometimes, as much by accident as intention, we happen upon a form or practice in our shared political life which captures something of heaven. It is not wrong, I think, to accord such secular practices a certain level of sanctity. It is not wrong to call the principle of ‘one person, one vote’ in some sense sacred.

No longer are we allowed to trust that people are who they say they are. They are assumed to be imposters until they produce a piece of paper which says otherwise.

But once that sacredness has been granted, we face a very similar problem to the one faced by those early Scottish reformers regarding Communion. How do we ensure this sacredness is protected, that it does not become debased? A traditional answer has mirrored the reformers’ approach to communion: erecting hurdles to ensure that only the truly worthy are allowed to participate. The unmaking of this approach has been the slow work of centuries as the franchise was eventually extended down the social and property ladder to all male citizens and, then, belatedly, to all women as well. What I experienced at the polling station that day was a miracle secured by many years’ of struggle, reform, compromise, and collective recognition that what has made this act sacred is not its exclusion, but its welcome. In this it has mirrored the welcome of most contemporary Communion services in the Church of Scotland where participants are, to be sure, asked to approach the act soberly, having examined themselves and made confession to God, but where the default is to trust that people have done so. No longer are people considered unworthy until proven otherwise by their possession by a metal disc.

When I first heard of the possibility of the introduction of Voter IDs at polling places, my mind immediately flew to how such laws were aimed in the United States. Like here, there is little to no actual evidence of voter fraud there, but in a country where the archaic system of the Electoral College means a few thousands votes in the right state can decide a presidential election, there is a real threat that such laws will sway election results. Here the influence of such laws is less clear. While they do seem to have a small effect of driving down participation, at last year’s local elections four pre cent of eligible non-voters cited the ID requirement as the reason they did not vote, recent election results have not been dramatically out of step with opinion polling.

What I do worry about losing with these laws is a little bit of the elegance and dignity which has previously imbued the UK system. No longer are we allowed to trust that people are who they say they are. They are assumed to be imposters until they produce a piece of paper which says otherwise. It is a small change, but one which nudges the rite closer to being just one more bureaucratic transaction, a bit more like picking up a package or going to the bank, than one of our most important public rites. It is a precaution that seeks to preserve the sacredness of the act, but is chipping away at what it is that makes it sacred.
If I wind up working in a polling station on July 4th, I will dutifully check every voters’ ID prior to handing them a ballot. I will send friends and neighbours home to get theirs if they’ve forgotten it. I will be careful to bring my own. I am sure if I had lived in former times in Scotland, I also would have been careful to remember to take my communion token to church. Those are the rules of admittance and the rite is too important to skip. However, I will mourn a little for what has been lost and hope for more places where we recognize the possibility of the sacred dwelling in our practices of welcome, recognition, and trust rather than exclusion.