On Sloth

 

Sloth is a creature known for its sleepiness. If your metabolism, like my greyhound or your sloth, makes you nap 20 hours per day, are you still slow for the 4 hours you spend awoke? The sloth is slow no matter what time of day. The greyhound is exceeding fast.

The slow sloth got its name, meaning ‘laziness’ in 1749, named for one of the seven deadly sins, called in Latin acedia. Lacking energy (or care) to read your Scriptures, pray your prayers, or care your cares, is what Pope Francis calls a ‘dangerous temptation’ to find ‘disgust’ in everything you do. How does this differ from clinical depression? Possibly in the four hours you can choose to use. The signs of the times are showing how each conscious being must seek the way to mend the world. The simplest may be the most effective. Gospel means news: it was hard enough to know who’s telling the truth in Pilate’s day. Is it not slothful not to check? Look around. Is silence false witness? Silence is no witness. Is no witness false witness? Is fantasy, entertainment, conspiracy theories, propaganda? Be fast chasing what God loves: justice, mercy, humility and truth.

On New News

 

So much of what passes for news is not news. Lifestyle, publicity, disease of the week. Speculation on speculative finance. Propaganda, a feature since the tracts of the 16^th century if not the Roman walls. Currying fears, stoking angers, preening envies. Fake news is the lie direct, beloved of politicians and celebrities.

 You know why you absorb it. To see what’s going on, find connection, belong to the bigger picture. News tries to put this across. Still, if you can discuss the gloomy and frightful with yourself so much, surely you can find some light and love to ruminate too. What if you forgave yourself for every embarrassing and witless thing you ever published, speechified, or performed? It simplifies life.

The New Testament is new news. Many complicated explanations come forth around the miraculous healings, but what people are seeking is direct physical cure. “If you will, make me clean.” “Lord, that I might receive my sight.” “If I might touch but the hem of his garment…” People walk, leap, see, speak, recover their right mind, stand up after near-death, even death experiences. What maintains this today? New news. We can be part of the cure. “I will, be clean.”

On False News

Disinformation aka false news appears historically in 1939. Note the date. As a branch of intelligence, false news was deliberately spun to confuse, disconcert and disorientate the enemy. When practiced as an arm of government policy, in every aspect of statecraft or politics, across the civic realm, it’s fair to ask: who is the enemy? Answer: the entire population.

            If no news is good news, and false news is no news, who has ears to hear any kind of news at all? It comes down to Pilate’s question: what is truth?

            News is not rumour, conspiracy theory, or urban myth. Not propaganda, relations public, or celebrity puff.  Generally there’s an event involved. News isn’t opinion, reflection, ideological comment or indeed suppression.

            Can we cast away the works of darkness, like the baptismal child rejecting Satan through its sponsor’s voice? How much do we have to know? How much can we know? How much do we dare to know, and through whom?

            A little knowledge, in St. Paul’s view, is not only dangerous, but beside the point. ‘Repent, and believe the good news’ not the false news, says Mark’s Gospel. Verify the event. Without love, we are nothing.

On Experiencing Life.

A homeless person does not have a home. You know, like Jesus: ‘The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has not where to lay his head.’ A person experiencing homelessness is having an experience. There’s a lot of experience around. I could experience bullying, home violence (often fatal), disability, sickness (physical), illness (mental), addiction, imprisonment, or a range of other misfortunes. I might experience discrimination, racism, or misogyny. Nobody is despised or rejected: Jesus was both.

            I struggle to read the news, comprising the lie direct, indirect, imaginative, rhetorical, masked, theatrical, privileged, or corrupt — typically pronounced by the powerful — and the soup of euphemisms in which the rest of us daily swim. Jesus wasn’t experiencing asylum seeking as he went into Egypt with his family. Herod was experiencing wrath, killing young children right, left and centre: they fled for their lives.

            All worldly enterprises, the Buddha noted, end in sorrow. Sometimes they begin there. In the process of experiencing life, it may be necessary for the sick to seek healing, the despairing comfort, prisoners freedom, the despised and rejected to seek justice. Hear truth: show mercy, do justice.

On Not Reading the News: A Lenten Update

I gave up reading the news for Lent. Car repair workshop: what’s news? Choice of newspaper, gossip mags, large screen TV. Magazines relentlessly procreational: weddings, engagements, infidelities, jealousies, breakups, babies, parental panics and occasional interesting illnesses, especially children. The only news in town.

            Resisted temptation to read newspaper: political news, local or international, devious and corrupting. Is TV lifestyle news? Can I avoid news previews running across the foot?

            Social media causes. Meritorious causes I support. Would you make your type so huge if you knew I won’t read news headlines? What’s news?

            What was news in Jesus’ day? Man bashed senseless, left by roadside; white-bleeding taxes to be enforced soon; partisan leader Barabbas released without trial; government infrastructure project attracts rioters (deaths at aqueduct protest); legions on march from Syria; world-obliterating war in Judea; fall of civilizations. ‘Can you not discern the signs of the times?’ says Jesus.

            No news at the mall. Only a muffled ambient acoustic, as I descend the escalator, a stream of souls gliding upwards beside. It’s not clear: I think I hear crowd music, alleluias. Only for a moment. No news. Can you read the signs of the times?