Noise

TV enthralls me sometimes. I don..t have cable or satellite at my house so normally I don..t watch TV, so when I see a commercial for the first time, I watch it, staring with intense interest and finding myself laughing at a lot of them. Like the one where the mobsters are dragging a body out of their trunk to dump in the river and the satellite radio starts playing ..I just died in your arms tonight.... Okay funny right? But other commercials, which most people either ignore or flip channels through really make me take a step back and think about what is really being communicated about our society.

Take for example one I saw for a broadband card for your laptop computer that allowed you to go online anywhere there was cell phone reception. It..s oft used and maybe over repeated mantra was ..Get connected.. Get connected? I asked myself. What was I supposed to be connected to? Does this mean that up until now I..ve been disconnected? I know, I know it..s just a marketing ploy, but the reality is that most of us are pretty connected. Take myself for example. Start with my computer. I was writing this on my laptop sitting in Starbucks. At the same time, I had a couple of programs open. One was my instant messaging. No body was on except for Aaron and I had already talked to him once that day. But just incase Willy or Glen or Sarah came on I had myself labeled as ..Available... The next program I had open was my mail program. It goes on the Internet every 5 minutes to check for new mail. (The original setting was 15 minutes, I changed it to every minute at first but found that it made my computer run pretty slow on the internet so I compromised) It goes and checks two different emails I have just incase somebody was to send me an email message. If that..s not enough it then the two blogs I have setup send me messages anytime something changes. If somebody leaves me a comment or posts a new blog I know about it within a few minutes. (Though I..ve never tested the response time.. hmm a new experiment for tomorrow). I..ve got a cell phone and two different work phone lines for a grand total of three emails.

And I know a lot of you have similar systems set up. What is it that drives our desire to be connected? Do I really want or need that much information at my finger tips? Or is something else that drives us; that drives me.

The desire to be connected, to be so available that we don't ..miss.. anything that happens, whether its online, at school, hanging out with friends, the newest band or the latest show, the sweetest skateboard move or crash, all of this is driven by a sense of loneliness. How do I know this? I don..t want to be lonely so I reach out for any sense of ..being connected.. I can find. Because loneliness is the edge of a much bigger feeling of being alone. When we are lonely suddenly all sorts of doubts plague us. I'm not good enough, nobody likes me, and nobody understands me. And I try to solve those problems by being ..more likable.. or wanting to change things up or by trying harder to be ..good enough.. for people. And it works for a while. Have you noticed that? It works, kinda I guess. But soon those feelings start creeping back into my life and all of a sudden I'm faced with having to deal with all those same issues again.

So what do we do about all of this? I keep coming back to a scripture in () that says that Jesus often withdrew to the lonely places to pray. I find myself constantly running form the lonely places in my life. Yet Jesus did the opposite. Why? Why would anyone in their right mind run towards some thing that leaves them feeling empty? Scripture says he went there to pray. I don..t know what your idea of prayer is, but here..s the deal, it..s a time to speak to the creator of the universe. Okay that..s kinda intimidating right? Like going to talk to the president. Except that he created you too. Lovingly created you. Lovingly created you to be lonely. What? Were created to be lonely? I think so. I'm not positive, but loneliness seems to be a constant theme throughout the lives of the Heroes of the faith, and in their loneliness they cried out to God. Read through the psalms sometimes. God created loneliness to draw us to himself. We try to fill ourselves up with all sorts of other things, I did and still do. But he created us as lonely needy creatures that he might show us his love and his compassion to us.

So if you..re feeling lonely, try turning off the cell phone instead of calling people to hang out. Turn off the Internet and stop checking your MySpace. Don..t flip on the TV. Instead grab a bible, grab some pen and paper and go have a conversation with God the one who made you and see what he has been longing to say to you.