Think how our own consciousness has changed. Over thousands of years, we processed our world in a certain way.

A hundred and fifty years ago, telephones, radio, and movies didn’t exist. A hundred years ago, television had not even been invented. Forty years ago, we didn’t have the internet. Thirty years ago, no smart phones. Fifteen years ago, no Facebook, google, or twitter. Ten years ago, Instagram and Snapchat weren’t around.

Within a 150 years, our minds have become immersed in a constant barrage of commercials, trivial information, comic and tragic and violent stories, incessant electronic communication with co-workers and friends.

All the margins in our brains are gone. Instead our mind is stuffed with a buzz of banality, an often meaningless flow of mental stimulation.

That is why the old Christian phrase, a “quiet time,” has taken on new meaning today. Quietness, mindfulness, meditation is all the rage again. Aldous Huxley once said that a society is good to the extent that it renders contemplation possible for its members. From that standpoint, our society must be getting more and more barbaric. We wake up in the morning and grab for our phone, turn on the TV, check our laptop. The idea of time to do some deep thinking has been almost lost, not to mention deep praying.

“Morning by morning he wakens, he wakens my ear, to hear as those who are taught.” Isaiah 50:4