A Precious Commodity

Matt and I were recently watching an episode of the show Elementary. In it, Sherlock Holmes is struggling with some new-found feelings of personal responsibility. Sherlock is a recovering drug addict, so his sponsor noticed that he was going through some kind of an inner struggle. Sherlock opens up to his sponsor a little, and tells him that his guilt is affecting his concentration, his most precious commodity. That statement made me reflect for a moment. Sherlock’s keen concentration and observation skills are part of his most valuable service to his community. It made me ponder how much social media has dulled my own ability to concentrate. I used to blame it on my children, and this is a valid excuse to be sure. But they aren’t the only ones constantly interrupting me. How many times am I deterred from my focus by a text, Twitter notification, or incoming email? And then I began to wonder if concentration is even considered a valuable commodity by many in our culture. I get upset with myself if I sit down to read or write, and find my mind wandering too much. With the ways that we now gather information like junk mail, our minds have been trained to skim and move on. Meditation is boiled down to 140 characters or less. No one even wants to read an article over 750 words (Is that too many?). One of our local news stations promises to give you the day’s news in 90 seconds or less. We want overload, and we want it fast. It’s like our whole society has Attention Deficient Disorder. I’m always bewildered when I recommend a book to someone whom I am having a profitable conversation with, and they reply, “I don’t really like to read.” These are intelligent people. And I beg to differ, they do like to read. I should know, I see their comments on Facebook. I think the problem has less to do with reading and more to do with concentration. It’s a precious commodity, and it helps us serve our community better. And this is why I believe that there is certainly a spiritual battle going on behind the scenes when it comes to concentration. If we can be interrupted by the children, by the phone notifications, and by the clutter of information that is consumed in a day, we miss the real intrusion in our lives. It is easy to operate on our default mode, thinking that we are basically on top of things if it weren’t for a few pesky disturbances. But Sherlock was on to something. He recognized that he was disturbed, he was guilty. Of course, Elementary didn’t give us the gospel message, but that is the true interruption that we need. The gospel is not something that we find within our own personal inner struggle. And it’s not something that we discover from our own accomplishments. It is the proclamation of the good news of Christ’s work on our behalf. God’s grace disrupts us. And we would do well to meditate on that for a while.