Fr. Adolfo Nicolás, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, spoke to Belgian Jesuits in September 2010 about a “globalization of superficiality,” a result of a surfeit of information (Click here if you can’t see the video.)
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
Nicholas Carr suggests in a provocative book that the internet is rewiring our brains and that we are losing the ability to think deeply.
The Examen is a meditative practice of not only reviewing one’s day, but also reviewing one’s knowledge: what one chooses to give over one’s attention to. It may be seen as the practice of avoiding superficiality by bringing before God that which merits our attention, our knowledge, our love. We are not human search engines churning mindless information: we are human beings capable of loving the way Christ loved, of giving our attentiveness and our intellectual powers to those places in the Kingdom where Christ calls us to work.
Stop surfing for two minutes: sit in silence and pray.