Finally, and most importantly, I give thanks to God, who continually surprises me with his call and whose love is the impetus behind every word I write.
NOTES
1: WIRED SOULS IN A DIGITAL WORLD
[1] “Digital native” and “digital immigrant” are terms coined by author Marc Prensky. They have become a part of the cultural jargon regarding the technological revolution. He explains: “Digital Immigrants lived in two cultures: the pre-digital and the digital. Digital Natives have known only the digital culture. A great many of the Digital Immigrants’ deeply-felt attitudes and preferences were formed in, and reflect, the pre-digital culture and age.” Mark Prensky, “Digital Natives,” accessed September 1, 2015, http://marcprensky.com/digital-native/.
[2] Douglas Rushkoff, Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now (New York: Current, 2013), 87.
[3] This is called the Hebbian theory or Hebb’s Law, after Dr. Donald Hebb, a neuropsychologist who combined the study of human behavior with brain science. He summarized his findings in the book The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1949). The actual principle is stated in the book as follows: “When an axon of cell A is near enough to excite cell B and repeatedly or persistently takes part in firing it, some growth process or metabolic change takes place in one or both cells such that A’s efficiency, as one of the cells firing B, is increased.”
[4] Maggie Jackson, Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2009), 22, 252; Judith Horstman, The Scientific American Day in the Life of Your Brain (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009); Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman, How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist (New York: Ballantine, 2009).
[5] Lectio divina, or sacred reading, seems to have begun with Saint Benedict as part of his Rule, which involved both individual and corporate reading of biblical passages over and over, with a goal of experiencing the presence of God. In the twelfth century a Carthusian monk named Guigo II wrote a letter to another monk with a treatise on prayer that he called “the Ladder of Monks.” It incorporated four steps of growth—lectio, meditatio, oratio, and contemplatio. In the twentieth century, the Second Vatican Council recommended lectio divina for the general public; its practice has since become widespread across many Christian groups, both Catholic and Protestant.
[6] I am using each of these four components of lectio divina as separate metaphors to represent the kinds of growth desired and the practices that can aid in it. I am thankful to Maria Lichtmann and her book The Teacher’s Way: Teaching and the Contemplative Life (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 2005) for this idea.
2: SLOW READING AND DEEP THINKING
[1] Data regarding Americans’ use of time for the years 2003–2014 can be found at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “American Time Use Survey,” accessed February 24, 2016, www.bls.gov/tus/. There have been numerous other studies over the past decade with similar findings. Statistics in this book are from studies by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the National Education Association, cited by Michael Harris in his book The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection (New York: Current, 2014). It should also be noted here that some suggest that activity on the Internet constitutes reading, and as such it is not being taken into account in these kinds of statistics.
[2] See, for example, Mark Bauerlein, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (New York: Penguin, 2008); and Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education 107, no. 2 (2008), 89–94.
[3] Maryanne Wolf, “Our ‘Deep Reading’ Brain: Its Digital Evolution Poses Questions,” Summer 2010, accessed September 1, 2015, at http://niemanreports.org/articles/our-deep-reading-brain-its-digital-evolution-poses-questions/.
[4] Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” 89.
[5] See C. Christopher Smith and John Pattison, Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2014).
[6] For an overview of the various facets of this loose group of organizations, see www.slowmovement.com/aboutus.php, accessed September 1, 2015.
[7] David Mikics, Slow Reading in a Hurried Age (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2013), 6.
[8] Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1960), 30.
[9] Thomas Newkirk, The Art of Slow Reading: Six Time-Honored Practices for Engagement (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2011), 6.
[10] C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge: University Press, 1961), 141.
[11] Sven Birkerts, The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1994), 75.
[12] According to a 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center, 58 percent of Millennials say they cannot be certain that God exists, as opposed to 69 percent of Gen-Xers and 73 percent of baby boomers. For the full study, see “Millennials in Adulthood,” March 7, 2014, www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/03/07/millennials-in-adulthood/.
3: EAT THIS BOOK
[1] Annual Bible usage research conducted by the Barna Group in conjunction with the American Bible Society. See American Bible Society, “State of the Bible 2015,” accessed September 2, 2015, www.americanbible.org/features/state-of-the-bible-research-2014.
[2] See Barna Group, “The State of the Bible: Six Trends for 2014,” April 8, 2014, accessed September 2, 2015, www.barna.org/barna-update/culture/664-the-state-of-the-bible-6-trends-for-2014.
[3] See Barna Group, “Millennials and the Bible: Three Surprising Insights,” October 21, 2014, accessed September 2, 2015, at www.barna.org/barna-update/millennials/687-millennials-and-the-bible-3-surprising-insights.
[4] Stanislas Dehaene, Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read (New York: Penguin, 2010), 2.
[5] Alex Murashko, “Bible App 5 Shows YouVersion Still on Track to Engage the World in Scripture,” April 23, 2014, www.christianpost.com/news/bible-app-5-shows-youversion-still-on-track-to-engage-the-world-in-scripture-118434/.
[6] See American Bible Society, “State of the Bible 2015.”
[7] David Wells, God in the Whirlwind: How the Holy-Love of God Reorients Our World (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014), 17–18.
[8] Wells, God in the Whirlwind, 37–38.
[9] Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 10.
[10] Wells, God in the Whirlwind.
[11] Augustine, quoted in Thomas Newkirk, The Art of Slow Reading: Six Time-Honored Practices for Engagement (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2012), 76, emphasis added. The word lime is an old English term referring to a substance used in plasters, mortars, and cements; thus Augustine was speaking of “cementing” something into our memory.
[12] Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman, How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist (New York: Ballantine, 2009).
[13] Ian Burrell, “Inside Google HQ,” July 19, 2013, www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/inside-google-hq-what-does-the-future-hold-for-the-company-whose-visionary-plans-include-implanting-8714487.html.
[14] Thomas Newkirk, The Art of Slow Reading: Six Time-Honored Practices for Engagement (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2011), 77.
[15] Dallas Willard, “Spiritual Formation in Christ for the Whole Life and the Whole Person,” Vocatio 12, no. 2 (Spring 2001), 7.
[16] Psalm 1:1-6; 37:21; 40:8; 119:11, 16; Proverbs 6:21-22; Matthew 4:4.
4: MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE?
[1] Maggie Jackson, Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2009), 14.
[2] Douglas Groothuis, quoted in Tony Reinke, “Six Ways Your Phone Is Changing You,” July 19, 2014, www.desiringgod.org/articles/six-ways-your-phone-is-changing-you.
[3] Richard Foster, Sanctuary of the Soul: Journey into Me
ditative Prayer (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011).
[4] There are various apps that use the camera lens to allow a person to read and walk at the same time. For a description of one called Type n Walk, see Ellie Zolfagharifard, “Text AND Walk,” March 4, 2014, www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2573087/Text-AND-walk-App-makes-mobile-transparent-street-typing.html.
[5] Steve Bradt, “Wandering Mind Not a Happy Mind,” November 11, 2010, accessed November 6, 2015, at http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/11/wandering-mind-not-a-happy-mind/.
[6] Ruth Haley Barton, Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God’s Transforming Presence (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004).
[7] Evelyn Underhill, Practical Mysticism (Boston: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1915), accessed September 2, 2015, at www.gutenberg.org/files/21774/21774-h/21774-h.htm#5.
[8] Daniel G. Amen, The Amen Solution: The Brain Healthy Way to Lose Weight and Keep It Off (New York: Crown Archetype, 2011).
[9] Taken from the Philokalia, a collection of texts from the Orthodox tradition, written between the fourth and fifteenth century and compiled in the eighteenth century. Accessed September 2, 2015, at https://archive.org/stream/Philokalia-TheCompleteText/Philokalia-Complete-Text#page/n1017/mode/2up.
[10] Elder Mullan, trans., The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola (New York: P. J. Kennedy and Sons, 1914), accessed September 2, 2015, at www.sacred-texts.com/chr/seil/index.htm.
[11] Morton T. Kelsey, The Other Side of Silence: A Guide to Christian Meditation (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1976), 111.
[12] Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman, How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist (New York: Ballantine, 2009).
[13] Sondra Kornblatt, A Better Brain at Any Age (San Francisco: Conari, 2008).
[14] Newberg and Waldman, How God Changes Your Brain, 33.
5: MEDITATION—THE LABORATORY OF THE SOUL
[1] Martin Heidegger, Discourse on Thinking: A Translation of Gelassenheit (New York: Harper Perennial, 2000), 56, emphasis added.
[2] Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (New York: W.W. Norton, 2010).
[3] Hebrew Lexicon: H1897 and H7878 (ESV), accessed September 2, 2015, at www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H1897&t=ESV.
[4] Psalm 63:6; 77:12; 143:5; 145:5.
[5] Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman, How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist (New York: Ballantine, 2009), 5-6.
[6] Greek Lexicon: G3563 (ESV), accessed September 2, 2015, at www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G3563&t=ESV.
[7] Morton T. Kelsey, The Other Side of Silence: A Guide to Christian Meditation (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1976), 9.
[8] Richard Foster, Sanctuary of the Soul: Journey into Meditative Prayer (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2011), 26.
[9] Joshua 1:8; Psalm 63:5-6; Isaiah 26:3; Romans 8:6.
[10] Newberg and Waldman, How God Changes Your Brain, 16.
[11] See Newberg and Waldman, How God Changes Your Brain; Sondra Kornblatt, A Better Brain at Any Age (San Francisco: Conari, 2008); and Daniel Bor, The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning (New York: Basic Books, 2012).
[12] See my chapter on meditative prayer in Tricia Rhodes, The Soul at Rest: A Journey into Contemplative Prayer (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1996), and the chapter on meditation in Richard Foster, A Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988).
[13] Curt Thompson, Anatomy of the Soul: Surprising Connections between Neuroscience and Spiritual Practices That Can Transform Your Life and Relationships (Carol Stream, IL: SaltRiver, 2010).
[14] Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009).
[15] Hans Urs von Balthasar, Prayer (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1961), 35.
[16] Peterson, Eat This Book, 59.
[17] Thompson, Anatomy of the Soul, 48.
6: PRAYING THE TEXTS OF OUR DIGITAL LIVES
[1] James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 23. Smith uses the word apocalyptic here because the purpose of apocalyptic literature, such as the book of Revelation, was to provide a Godward vision to counter that of cultural institutions and practices of the day. He calls for “a contemporary apocalyptic—a language and a genre that sees through the spin and unveils for us the religious and idolatrous character of the contemporary institutions that constitute our own milieu” (p. 92).
[2] Elise Hu, “New Numbers Back Up Our Obsession with Phones,” All Tech Considered, October 10, 2013, www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2013/10/09/230867952/new-numbers-back-up-our-obsession-with-phones.
[3] Jaron Lanier, “Fixing the Digital Economy,” New York Times, June 8, 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/opinion/sunday/fixing-the-digital-economy.html?_r=0. See also Jaron Lanier, “Digital Passivity,” New York Times, November 27, 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/11/28/opinion/digital-passivity.html?_r=1.
[4] See Douglas Groothuis, “Christian Scholarship and the Philosophical Analysis of Cyberspace Technologies,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 41, no. 4 (1998), 633.
[5] Tony Reinke, “Six Ways Your iPhone Is Changing You,” Desiring God (blog), July 19, 2014, www.desiringgod.org/articles/six-ways-your-phone-is-changing-you, emphasis added.
7: ALONE . . . TOGETHER
[1] Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook post, March 25, 2014, accessed September 2, 2015, at www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10101319050523971?pnref=story.
[2] Douglas Groothuis, “Christian Scholarship and the Philosophical Analysis of Cyberspace Technologies,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 41, no. 4 (1998): 638–639.
[3] See Curt Thompson, Anatomy of the Soul: Surprising Connections between Neuroscience and Spiritual Practices That Can Transform Your Life and Relationships (Carol Stream, IL: SaltRiver, 2010).
[4] Leonard Sweet, From Tablet to Table: Where Community Is Found and Identity Is Formed (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2015), 33.
[5] Thompson, Anatomy of the Soul, 24.
[6] Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (New York: Basic Books, 2011), 16.
[7] Jun Young and David Kinnaman, The Hyperlinked Life: Live with Wisdom in an Age of Information Overload (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013).
[8] Turkle, Alone Together, 17.
[9] Tony Reinke, “Smartphone Addiction and Our Spiritual ADD,” Desiring God (blog), April 18, 2015, www.desiringgod.org/articles/smartphone-addiction-and-our-spiritual-add.
[10] James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009).
[11] Reinke, “Smartphone Addiction and Our Spiritual ADD.”
[12] Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance defines koinonia as “partnership, i.e. (literally) participation, or (social) intercourse, or (pecuniary) benefaction—(to) communicate(-ation), communion, (contri-)distribution, fellowship.” Accessed October 13, 2015, at http://biblehub.com/strongs/greek/2842.htm.
[13] James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 211.
[14] Reinke, “Smartphone Addiction and Our Spiritual ADD.”
[15] Sweet, From Tablet to Table, 19.
[16] Sweet, From Tablet to Table, 67.
8: THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE
[1] See Mark Galli and Ted Olsen, ed. 131 Christians Everyone Should Know (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2000).
[2] “Finding God in All Things,” accessed September 2, 2015, at http://jesuits.org/spirituality.
[3] Richard Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), 156.
[4] Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of S
piritual Reading (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 113.
[5] In my first book, The Soul at Rest: A Journey into Contemplative Prayer (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1996), I took the same view as Richard Foster and dozens of other spiritual writers, describing contemplation as a form of prayer that we must be spiritually prepared to undertake. The view is rooted in the practices of mystics who seek to spend hours in silent contemplation, something most of us are probably not prone to do. I have since revised my understanding, as this chapter explains.
The Wired Soul Page 14
