Former News Junkie

In a different season of my life, I was a news junkie. Not really on purpose, but it just sort of happened. I found myself at home for long hours of the day when the best thing on television was news - local or national - and quite honestly, I just needed the noise. 

I was never a person to tune into an actual 24/7 news channel; I was never over here streaming Fox or CNN or MSNBC or anything like that. It's just that one can only watch so many reruns in their life and at some point, the noise of the familiar voice becomes somewhat obnoxious and at least the news occasionally did have something new to add to my life. 

I was not just a news junkie; I was an amateur pundit. Chalk it up, perhaps, to my background in journalism, where I learned to ask the questions. Or perhaps to my background in being human, where I learned to distract myself with them. But whatever it was, I was well-versed in everything from local headlines to international affairs and could wax eloquent on almost all of it. 

It's a good way, maybe, to convince yourself you're relevant. 

In the current season of my life, I almost never see the news. Really. It's still on in the mornings, but my attentions are elsewhere in that precious hour or so that I get before going to work - I'm reading my Bible, doing a couple of puzzles to warm my brain up for the day, walking the dog. By the time I realize the news is even on, I've missed most of it, and that's okay. When I get home from work, the news is almost over for the evening. 

And quite honestly, I no longer need the noise. 

So what changed? 

What changed is that I landed in my dream job where my whole life is human service. Where I spend my days engaged with real human beings in my real community with real problems and things weighing heavy on them. I spend my days talking with folks who need someone to talk to, hearing about whatever they're thinking about, listening to my coworkers talk about the latest trends on whatever social media platform they are engaging. 

And when you're so engaged and connected with the persons who are actually around you every day, all the commotion in the world simply loses its appeal. 

I'm not saying we should be disengaged from worldly affairs. I'm not saying we should turn a blind eye to what's going on in other places. As good citizens of God's creation, we should live with our eyes wide open to what is going on in our fallen world...and all the little stories of redemption that are happening alongside of that. 

But at the same time, we have to be honest with ourselves. We have to realize that it doesn't matter how much posturing I do here at home, there is not much I can do to realistically change the course, even for things I care deeply about, halfway across the country or the world. I can get as righteously (or unrighteously) angry as I want and spend my time up in arms here in my own town, but it's just noise. 

And like I told you, I no longer need the noise. 

I no longer need the noise because I'm actively engaged here in the conversation. I no longer need the noise because I'm doing the work right here. And yes, maybe one day, those headlines hit a little closer to home, but if I'm investing in my little corner of the world right now, then I'll be ready when I get here. 

I think that's the greatest lie that we've bought into. We've been told we have to engage the far away right now because if we don't stop it while it's there, we will blink and it will be here and it will be too late. But I don't think that's true. I think that if we engage right here right now, then when those big, scary things from far away finally get here, they won't find a crack to get a foothold in. We will be so connected, so secure, so engaged, so loving in our own place that there simply won't be room for them. We won't let each other down. 

So I don't need the noise any more. Because I'm building something better. And if that means that when I come home at the end of the day, I no longer need to turn the news on, then so be it. Because come what may, I'm ready for it. 

I've been laying the foundation in the real world and that kind of solid foundation - that kind of real community, that kind of meaningful engagement, that kind of deep love - stands up to any headline. Every time.