I was overseas when Hurricane Katrina hit. I was working for catholic relief services in Cotonou, the capital of Benin, a tiny West African country. My local friends asked if anyone i knew was affected by the castrophe and poked at me that it was a little ironic that I was all the way over there and America didn't have enough people to take care of it self.
Truth be told. I wanted to be there. Helping.
I am quite a sensative person and I have a mixed relationship with news. I agree that members of a democracy should be informed of what's happening in the world but on the other hand I feel like we could all be a lot more effective at making this world a better place if we stopped complaining about what's happening and step up to love our neighbors.
For that reason, most of my life I didn't have much time for news. I knew basic headlines, big events, but I didn't follow politics or the in depth analysis. I was just busy. I spent most of my single life trying to do something about poverty and injustice.
But kids came and and my call changed. I wrestled with God as my eyes gazed on the work I deeply loved. I was 8 months pregnant with Eddie and the call came. Move to Geneva and take a job at the International Labor Organization or be a stay at home mom in Livermore.
My husband in the other hand, loved news. I think it was his sport. He rarely talked about it, so i didn't know for a long time but he could problably teach history from 1985 on strictly from memory. He had followed everything and he has the memory of a steel trap.
Mothering shifted my relationship with news. Stories of kids dying in the back seat of an overheated car or being eaten by an alligator at the zoo filled me with deep pain for mothers with empty arms. Filled me with anxiety about my own children meeting terrible tragedy. I wasn't doing anything in the world, so I avoided news.
I wasn't under a rock on the moon. I was running a biotech at the time. So i read more nitch news. The latest in fertilty research and FDA regulations. Mostly uncontroversial stuff. I was educated and conversational, but i wasn't diving in.
But 2020 changed that. I was glued to all the early pandemic stuff trying to figure out what i should do for our family and trying to understand the virus and what my call was in this unusual moment in history. But slowly, i backed away again. Everything was loud. People were angry. I had 5 boys and no help. I caccooned with them.
But in the fall of 2020, I had an argument that I think many of us had. It was heated, personal and dividing. It actually made no sense. It was two people with lizard brains repeating narratives that had been hand chosen by Facebook algorithms.
It was the first time I felt a call to deeply read the news. But not just my news. Everyone's news. I signed up for all kinds of accounts on instagram that i would never have followed. I started clicking through on things. Reading them with an open mind. Fact checking. Reading other things. I can tell you, with deep certainty, no matter what the algorithm serves you, it's not the whole picture and half of it is AI generated. I found spots of good reporting. But good reporting is expensive - it requires travel and time and discipline to move passed the initial human instinct and ask questions. To listen to a variety of people and to share their witness and views.
I felt a call to bridge partisan divide and to fight back against misinformation that is rampant on both sides of the aisle. But on the other hand, most of my life, I've kept my distance from the news and relied on just my own eyes and ears in the world with my knees on the ground to lead me to ways and places where i can help. And if i can't help, what right do i have to insert myself. I'm not in those rooms. I don't know the whole story.
I eased up on news for Lent. Again, not a complete blackout but not tied to it trying to know every bit of knowledge and reading all the sources to parse out truth. I encounter enough without looking to get a sense of what's happening.
My jury is still out on what the right and faithful path is. I can see merit in trying to be a bridge but it's honestly exhausting. By reading so many perspectives i get a sense of what people have a hard time articulating and I've had increasingly honest dialogs about controversial topics where trust is built and common ground is made. But most where relationships are treasured. But to be honest, I'm enjoying the break. The endless stress cycle of rage inducing headlines and fear driven content, is physically hard to pull away findings. I am enjoying the lower stress levels but it feels almost irresponsable. On the other hand it allows me to meet people in the real world without wondering how they lean politically and what their values are.
What is the spiritually faithful path?
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