Discerning How We Consume News
In light of history and real life
A friend texted me the other day, wanting to talk about something that had been on her mind and heart a lot recently: how we consume news.
She wrote, “I’m a naturally sensitive person and lately I’ve found that watching/ reading news really upsets me, steals my peace, and makes me anxious! I feel it’s important to stay informed and it’s selfish to say I don’t want to read it because it upsets me. But it affects me a lot.”
Her words describe so well how I feel – and how I think a lot of people are feeling these days.
This is something I’ve struggled with my whole life, and in 2020 (remember then?) it really came to a head for me and I decided to just turn it all off. Lately, I’ve found myself revisiting this topic again recently, especially from a more broadly historical point of view.
Re-thinking Knowledge
I think sometimes we forget that we live in a complete anomaly in human history - the “information age.” Not only do most of us have access to general information with the click of a button or a call out to a virtual assistant, but we also have access to global news. This is not “normal” for human beings.
We aren’t really designed to know everything, and we aren’t really designed to live a global life.1
Here’s what I mean: we are finite creatures. Yes, we have wonderful, God-given intellects and some of us can really reach far in certain areas and do things like put a man on the moon or invent whole fictional worlds with their own legends and languages. Intellectual curiosity can be a wonderful gift. But we do have limits, and those are design, not defect. We’re not made to know everything.
What is knowledge for? This is the essential question. Why bother knowing anything at all?
Is knowledge for the sake of knowledge a good thing? Modern and post-modern philosophy2 would say: yes! Knowledge is power. It allows us to dominate.
And whether we know it or not, we’re marinating in a culture shaped by this worldview. We think it’s good to know things, but we can’t say why.
Yet a historically Christian worldview has a different understanding of knowledge and its goal. Knowledge is a gift from God. It’s something we receive from the world around us, for a purpose: to know what is good and true and beautiful. The purpose of knowledge is not to dominate but to better understand – and therefore, to become better, ourselves.
This is by no means a rallying cry to ignore all terrible things. Terrible things happen in this world. Right this minute, they are happening, in other countries and in our own towns. But terrible things are not the full picture; they are not the whole story. If we are to know them, we must understand them in context of what St. Paul calls the “great mystery”: Christ’s love for his Church.3
All these awful, horrific, violent, destructive, disgusting things that are happening, right now? They were with Christ on his cross. His resurrection is greater than they are. If knowing these terrible things makes us lose hope (and how could any of us not be tempted to lose hope in the face of such devastation?), then our knowledge is not serving its purpose.
I’m not proposing that we blithely say, “Christ has overcome the world!” and walk away. I’m proposing that knowledge of world news, to fulfil its purpose, needs to bring us to wrestle with the mystery of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection.
Personal Vocation Matters
In that wrestling, we may experience a call – perhaps a call to share our resources, our prayers, our own small sufferings in solidarity. We may experience a call to do something extra-ordinary: to go and be physically present with those who are in pain or start a movement for change. We may experience a call to something seemingly disparate but in fact deeply related: to light a candle (proverbial or real) and create or appreciate beauty. That call will happen in the privacy and quiet of our souls if we’re listening for it.
Which leads me to this: it’s really important to listen for that call in the context our real lives, not the context of social media or digital feeds.
We all have people to love and care for, things that we’ve committed to do. Presumably we’re doing those things because we discerned a call to them or have received them clearly from the Lord. Being faithful to the call of our real lives is not a sideshow. It’s the main event.
And especially for those who have been gifted with sensitivity,4 this means discerning carefully what knowledge of world atrocities is doing for us in our real lives, and in turn, for others around us. Are we praying better or unable to pray well because we’re too anxious? Are we more loving and generous to those around us because we realize anew how precious life is, or are we grasping and controlling because we’re more afraid? Are we actually taking action or are we paralyzed by overwhelm?
Prayer affects the world on a global scale.5 Very little else does.
We can (and should!) love and serve our fellow man, at home and abroad. But God has given us our lives. If you’re called to international politics or another global field of impact, do that. If you’re called to change nappies and read bedtime stories, do that. If you’re called to the hidden life of a cloister, do that.
Listen for your call, and do it. Don’t succumb to the idea that you’re a failure if you don’t have an opinion on geopolitical world events, or even only a vague idea about them, if you aren’t being called to have one.
And don’t assume that reading Goodnight Moon for the 1375th time won’t help anyone who’s really suffering. If done in love, it will. That’s part of the Great Mystery: we are taken up into it. “You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”6
As Christians, we believe that our actions do make a difference - but not in the way the world often thinks. By all means, give your money to the poor and call your political representative if he/she has any clout. But also, be faithful in the daily things and unite them with Christ. It’s prayer, and it’s effective.
The weight of the whole world does not rest on any of our shoulders. Only the God-Man can carry it. Yes, be a Simon of Cyrene and give your back to Him, but do it as you, for love of Him and others, in the way that He is calling you to do it. Don’t do it out of fear or societal shame.
Don’t be afraid to step away from the news. Don’t be afraid to give God an unequivocal ‘yes’ if He asks you do the small, difficult, thing you’ve been avoiding7 instead of reading about another atrocity. Offer it up for the ones experiencing unspeakable sorrow.
Discern Your Unique Call
Good discernment involves looking the hard questions in the face and saying yes or no, not out of fear or selfishness or negativity, but out of love and fidelity to God and his call.
So if you’re in a place where the news is making you anxious, and you aren’t sure what to do, here are some questions that might help you wrestle with it all:
Why do I believe that it’s important to consume news/ know about global events? What purpose does this knowledge serve?
What fruit is it bearing in my life? Is there good fruit (even if painful), or bad fruit?
Have I intentionally discerned my ‘daily life’ call? Do I have peace about what God is calling me to in the day to day – how I spend my time, energy, and resources, in light of my general (baptismal) calling as a Christian?
Am I being called to something additional or new, big or small?
I don’t have any answers for anyone else, and I’m always trying to find my own in prayer and conversation with wise people I trust. But I hope that the ideas here inspire your own discernment about how you consume news.
I fully recognize the irony of saying this as an ex-pat married to someone from a different country and culture (and, arguably, language if not dialect). While I am truly, truly grateful for this wonderful life God has given me, I also recognize that it takes some extraordinary graces to deal with the strain that global living puts on a person.
Painting with a wide brush as this is not an academic essay.
Ephesians 5
By which I mean “carefully attuned,” not “easily offended” – truly sensitive people have emotional and physical “radar” which picks up on things more readily. Add in high levels of empathy and you have someone who’s gifted with the ability to perceive and feel very strongly. It’s a wonderful gift. It’s an exhausting gift.
This is not a throw-away comment. Union with God brings more God into this world and He is the Way-Maker. But prayer does not always depend on detailed knowledge of events. I knew a girl who once spent a year in a cloister discerning whether or not to be a Carmelite nun and, as Carmelite nuns do, give her life to praying for the world. She said the sisters got the newspapers weekly and one sister was assigned the task of reading and relaying to the other sisters what they could be praying for specifically. But the sister entrusted with this task was the oldest and did not have the most reliable memory for detail. This was on purpose! The wise Mother Superior had realized that their prayers did not need every horrific detail of news in order to be effective.
Ephesians 2:19-22
Much easier to write than to do.