I fumble around in the semi-dark, dawn just beginning to peer around the edges of the drawn curtains. My hand pats clumsily around my nightstand until I find my phone. I tap in my passcode and wince before my eyes adjust to the light. I scroll.
This has become my morning routine. I scan the news of the night before. I take in the numbers. I try to interpret charts and graphs. I flick past bold, 28-point fonts, headlines that would have been unthinkable a month ago and now feel commonplace. And before I’ve even gotten out of bed I’ve started the steady IV drip of anxiety and foreboding.
Steady because throughout the day I will repeat this process. I’ll end a video call and open a new tab on my browser to see what I might have missed. In between the steps of making dinner I’ll check in again. Any mental break and I’ll usually find myself drawn there again.
I’m not sure why. Perhaps some part of me thinks that more information might mean more control, that armed with data I might be more able to mentally and emotionally wrestle the surreal into reality. Maybe its simpler than that. Or more complex. I really don’t know.
Today I resisted the pull of the news (for a little while, at least) and read Mark 10 instead.
There’s this little moment when Jesus throws his arms open to kids. He’s just finished talking about a heavy topic. Before the chapter is over he will predict his own death. But right there in the middle he slows down, welcomes the kids to come in close, and he blesses them.
Whew. That’s convicting. I mean, how much have I been doing that with my kids lately? But I got tripped up even more on what Jesus said.
Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.
Mark 10:15
The kingdom of God is everything. It is in everything, flows through everything, revives everything. What does it mean to receive everything like a child?
I started thinking about how my own kids have received the down-is-up reality of the last few weeks. I compared my constant scrolling and news aggregating to what they’ve been up to.