Seeing Clearly
I wouldn’t call myself addicted to my smartphone, but I could definitely see how negatively my life would be affected if I ever lost it. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that my phone is one of the most essential tools in my life. I do everything on my phone. My digital calendar alerts me to when and where I need to be. I can communicate with others through emails, texts, and multiple social media platforms immediately. If I ever am lost or unsure of how to get somewhere, my phone quickly finds the fastest route to my destination.
The ever-shrinking size of wearable tech makes it appealing to incorporate into our daily lives and the benefits, it seems, are many. With the right peripherals, my phone can turn into a health station as I can track my sleep, measure how much water I consume daily, and even be prompted to add some movement into my life through walking or running. I have seen many stories online of how someone’s smartphone saved their life by recognizing a sudden fall, an irregular heartbeat, or simply giving someone the motivation to begin exercising.
This capacity to track our physiological health - how much food we eat, our quality of sleep, the amount of water we consume - can be helpful as it may reveal habits and patterns that we are either unaware of or don’t want to admit. Using tools to critically examine how we treat our bodies can not only help us recognize unhealthy habits, but also can motivate us to make better choices in the future.
Sadly, we often stop short of tracking other areas - our minds, hearts, and even souls - with the same diligence that we take for our physical health. We can delude ourselves into thinking that the only meaningful “consumption” worth noting is what can affect our bodies; yet, the media and information we “consume” through our eyes and ears truly obviously affect us deeply. The words we hear, the way we see others treated, depictions of what is seen as healthy relationships - all of these things can have a tremendous impact on how we see God, others, and our very selves.
We may think that we are just clicking on another YouTube video or letting Netflix automatically launch us into the next episode of our latest favorite show, but the reality is that everything we see online, on television, in the movies, and even in the words of our favorite songs, is shaping our worldview. Writers, directors, streamers, YoutTube creators, social media influencers and musicians are trying to say something in their content. How they see the world, others, and themselves is communicated through the worlds that they create in their shows or in how their words capture the way they see the world in their songs.
The problem comes when content creators depict a world that does not correspond to reality. Through their own wounds, ignorance, or malformation we can be presented with movies, television shows, music, and other online content that does more to capture their own nihilistic worldview, distorted view on the human person, and warped sense of relational responsibility.
Instead of simply being entertained by the humor, drama, or intrigue of the content we regularly consume, we need to learn to question what bigger story this worldview is trying to communicate.
In many shows I see a worldview that tries to assume that God does not or should not exist, that confusingly goes between the extremes of trying to say both that our bodies are the only thing that matter and that they do not matter at all (thus, we see sexual gratification as the highest good), that emphasizes friendships only insofar as they are self-serving, that glorifies impermanence or commitment in relationships, and that is ultimately rooted in a materialistic worldview that is more concerned with manipulating your emotions than daring to ask the bigger questions about our purpose on this earth and what happens to us when we die.
This worldview is shallow and is only sustained by the faint glimmer of Truth that can shine through unexpectedly as characters, storylines, or scripts lean into our shared human wounds and speak to our universal need to be loved, seen, heard, and known.
Unfortunately, we can be blinded to seeing the negative effects that consuming large amounts of a worldview not rooted in reality can have on us. We can avoid binge-eating but at the same time binge-watch hours after hours of content that can have more serious consequences on the health of our entire person.
As the vast majority of people reading these words do not find themselves tucked away in a monastery or convent without access to video streaming services, social media, and 24/7 news, it is important to recognize that the media in our lives is, simply put, formative. We do not, however, need to be weirdly puritanical about the shows we watch or the music we listen to, but it does mean that we need to be firmly rooted in a worldview that is consistent with reality in order to guard ourselves against the corruptive nature of consuming too much of an unhealthy thing.
The worldview that finds itself rooted in reality, that actually has depth to it, is the biblical worldview. God has revealed Himself to us throughout history and has communicated to us who He is, who we are, and how we are meant to be in relationship with one another. This story, told through both the Old and New Testaments, is the anchor point of all human existence, where the big questions are not only asked, but also answered. We see the origin of humanity as well as its endpoint. We are shown our own dignity and in turn learn how to respect the dignity of every other person. This worldview is one that allows us to break free of the simple materialistic mindset and instead see creation through the lens of love.
The biblical world is refreshing because it helps us order our lives within this logic of love. Rather than seeing every relationship as something to exploit for my own self-serving ends, I can now see the value of sacrifice and laying down my life for a friend. In the biblical narrative I learn to be loved and how to love others in return. Instead of trying to force myself to live in a fantasy world where God does not exist, through the biblical worldview I can place myself within the bigger narrative of faith, hope, and love as I know that God loves me personally to the point that he gave his only Son over to this world to die for me so that I can have the opportunity to spend eternity with Him.
Rooting ourselves firmly in this worldview does not mean that we only can read or watch content that is generated by those who are also expressly communicating the biblical story. What it does mean is that we have to be sensitive to depictions on screen or in music of relationships, the human person, and even of God that try to distort what He has revealed about Himself. If we can “re-sensitize” our hearts to recognize the inconsistencies in what is presented to us in media versus what God has revealed to us to be true, this will hopefully lead us to having greater freedom in our hearts to see and love those around us not through the materialistic or secular lens, but rather through the lens of what is Good, True, and Beautiful, that is, through the lens of the biblical worldview.
Each time we begin a new liturgical season, I often think, how can I make this time more intentional, how can I make this year better than the last?
I think that one major way that I can make the most of these four weeks leading up to Christmas is to re-sensitize my heart to the biblical worldview by tracking if what I’m “consuming” corresponds to how God has revealed Himself and the world to us or if it aligns more to a secular or materialistic point of view.
This process isn’t meant to be very difficult. Whenever we watch a YouTube video, a show on Netflix or Hulu, listen to a song, or see something on television, we can simply ask, “what is the bigger story being told through this content?” This simple question can help sensitize us to the fact that what we are watching may not correspond with reality and may be potentially affecting the way I see God, others, and myself. Sometimes this will lead to us distancing us from a certain kind of content, but it may also mean that we can appreciate it better within the context of seeing how characters, stories, or songs really cry out and make known the deepest longing of all of our hearts.
During this Advent I really would like to try to be more intentional about what I watch and sensitive to what is being communicated. These four weeks are a chance to prepare our hearts by truly being alert to the full weight of what we celebrate on Christmas day. By “re-sensitizing” ourselves to the biblical worldview, we can effectively track what we consume through our eyes and ears and may be made aware of certain habits or tendencies that may have dulled our hearts to being aware of God’s presence in our lives.