At Barnes and Nobles yesterday I bought two books. They dramatically represent the two sides of this preaching thing and they illustrate how widely we preachers must cast our vision and point our interest to sustain the mission to which we have been called.
The first is: The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff. It was one of several books on social networks displayed on a special rack at the store.
I bought it to help me develop the Academy of Preachers Facebook page. It is an important tool for reaching the young people that can be connected, supported, and inspired by these social networks. One year ago I was ignorant of the social network revolution but I quickly discovered that young preachers have given up on email, my favorite avenue of communication.
Last week I posted a video describing the social network revolution; I think it is happening, but this morning I linked into a New York Times article posted by Academy FAN Steve McSwain that gave me pause.
The second book I bought is A Book of Hours by Thomas Merton. Praying the hours is an ancient way of giving structure to the gospel command that we pray without ceasing. This book arranges the poetry and prose of Merton into a one-week prayer cycle with the daily prayer schedule of Dawn, Day, Dusk, and Dark.
Let me quote the Introduction: “There must be a time of day when the man who makes plans forgets his plans, and acts as if he had no plans at all. There must be a time of day when the man who has to speak falls very silent. And his mind forms no more propositions, and he asks himself: Did they have a meaning? There must be a time when the man of prayer goes to pray as if it were the first time in his life he has ever prayed, when the man of resolutions puts his resolutions aside as if they had all been broken, and he learns a different wisdom: distinguishing the sun from the moon, the stars from the darkness, the sea from the dry land, and the night sky from the shoulder of a hill.”
The frenetic activity of staying in touch with the world, on the one hand, and the intentional, regulated refusal to be controlled and conformed to the world, on the other: the two sides of the soul. Both are essential to following Jesus: he was at home with the crowd at the wedding party and alone in the hilltop in prayer. So must the preacher.
But it is not easy.