It was happening night after night; my husband or I would decide after the children were in bed to “do a quick email check.” The other would join in and before we knew it half an hour had passed and all we had done was give into the temptation to idle curiosity and lose ourselves in distraction.
We have fought this vice our whole lives—distraction, the bane of a recollected life. It pulls one from one thing to the next, never allowing a task to be completed well, never giving one time just to think. The philosopher Dietrich Von Hildebrand in his book Transformation in Christ described distraction as the “exact antithesis to recollection” and “a state of being dragged along from one object to another, never touching any of them by superficially” (Ch. 6). The time sap of social media and the gossip-ridden sites of the internet are just another symptom of this fallen human state, one that we came into when we first gave into the vice of curiosity.
What is Von Hildebrand’s solution to being distracted? Learn how to become recollected.
Read the rest at the National Catholic Register…
Hi Susanna,
I left a comment at NCR but I wanted to write you personally, (as it were) and thank for your essay. It is superb.
And I mean that. I’m trying to have a small blog myself and it is so easy to fall into a harsher tone than I mean to present when it comes to our current pope and esp. his dealings with Traditionalists. But you write with such, what can I call it? Direct kindness, a forceful but gentle clearness, that you completely counter the pope’s comments (or whatever they were).
Very impressive. And I can’t thank you enough!
God bless you and your family, and as for your writing, as the Irish used to say, “Bail ó Dhia ar an obair!” (God prosper the work.”)
Raghn Crow
PS I first came across your article at Fr Z’s blog.
Dear Raghn,
Thank you so much for your nice comment. It brightened my day. I am a recovering cranky traditionalist, so it is nice to hear that I came across well. It is very difficult to find clear, charitable ways to speak truth sometimes, isn't it?
In Christ,
Susanna