Unnatural Selection

"We figured you might have exhausted your first choices and the obvious options by now—and with at least a few more weeks to go of self-isolation and sheltering in place, we wanted to make sure that you had something to take your mind off things.

So we gathered up viewing types from across the spectrum, and put them to our media expert, who keeps tabs on what’s available everywhere as part of his job. Whether you want to binge old rom-coms, miss sports dearly or want a jump on seeing things that will win awards next year, we’ve got a recommendation for you."

"A distraction for every type: What to watch during lockdown"

*********

Dear Kate,

Yesterday morning at around 5:30 when I was having a shalom moment hand-grinding my morning jolly beans, setting free the aroma of life, a shadow cropped up from behind, as if right through me to make itself known.  There stood my son, pensive, but not enough energy in him to venture inward, bursted out to me, "Why are you making random noises?"

So he didn't sleep well.  So he went to bed at 2, but only after hours of screen time.  So the afternoon before he scoured the house for the worst food he could find and cooked up a mini storm for himself and himself alone.  So he hasn't been exercising since there was no school.  So within the scheme of his own choosing and being, his seasonal allergy isn't getting any better.  So he hasn't been sleeping well.  And now there he stood, wondering aloud, and genuinely too, "Why all them noises?"

When we are dead set at our own (un)becoming, we become inattentive.

Such as inattentive to how your father might have chosen to hand-grind his coffee instead of using a machine precisely because he wants you to have a peaceful sleep.  Or that he's been alive and kicking every morning at around 5 since time immemorial (to you) and you only know about it now in your own unwelcome, coincidental wakefulness.  Or mom has been there too every morning, just to make sure her work can be finished in time to make dinner for everyone, every single night.  There, you go to the dinner table late, greet her food with your usual smirk and reluctantly make it vanish just to make yourself too before everyone else.  Adults, making their random noises, you wonder why.

Despite how we thrive on being distracted, we hate to be distracted from our own distractions.  Everything unuseful to us is random, filtered through our unnatural selection.  Meanwhile, God keeps making them random noises we would rather not keep awake for.

I have yet to know a sin that has nothing to do with our inattention.  A Christian man feeling bad jerking off in front of a screen wouldn't feel the same about shutting up stories he knows are meaningful but feels boring.  The church not only denounces not our craving for happy endings outside of Jesus but actually often encourages it, rationing out instant religiosity like Costco taster samples.  Inattention, before anything else, is betrayal.  Think about yourself in an intimate conversation keep nodding to the words of your friend but asking inside, "Why is she making all them random noises?"

Do you know the definition of "random"?  Proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern.  Meaninglessness.

Yours, Alex