Fifty-three hours … by anyone’s standards, that’s a long, hard workweek. So are you sitting down? Fifty-three hours is the amount of time each week that the average American young person spends on some form of electronic entertainment.
Think about it: TV. Video games. Music. Movies online. All kinds of social media. Many young people carry smart phones in their pockets. They stay constantly connected to entertainment and to each other.
This is Howard Butt Jr. of Laity Lodge. Connection is good, but our lives also need quiet space: periods when we unplug machines and plug ourselves into solitude. In order to learn from the wisdom around us, we all need times of silence … in the high calling of our daily work.
“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”
Mark 1:35
