A Room of One's Own

A few years ago, near the end of my junior year of high school, I attended the Middlebury College Young Writers' Conference at Breadloaf. Needless to say, it was an awesome experience; there is no feeling compared to what one feels when surrounded by people who share the same passions and interests as you. It didn't hurt that the Breadloaf campus is stunningly beautiful, an isolated village of old wood buildings surrounded by gentle rolling hills, sunny meadows, and untouched forests.

One of the speakers at the conference talked about writing, or trying to write, while being distracted. She asked us what some of the biggest distractions for us were. Someone shouted something about their cat sitting on the keyboard; that elicited a few chuckles from the audience. Someone else chimed in: “Lack of coffee!” A few whoops and hearty laughs arose.

Then someone said: “Internet!”

The whole room stirred; we had all been there before. We had all started a writing project, or a creative endeavor of some sort, only to be sidetracked by the constant lure of technology. Collectively, we had no doubt wasted thousands of hours on Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube, who knows where else. If it is this difficult to get our everyday work or our creative efforts done without getting sidetracked, one can only imagine how our spiritual lives—often relegated to the back burner on our list of priorities—have suffered.

Some people try to counteract this trend by becoming veritable Luddites, shutting themselves off social media and ridding themselves of electronic devices. But this change is superficial, and often when we do this we'll just fill the gap left by our phones and computers with other material things. We're not solving the problem, just moving the goalpost. Computers and the Internet aren't evil, nor are they the sole source of spiritual distraction; they are merely the latest distractions, and at this particular point in time one of the most prevalent.

We need to carve out two things for our spiritual lives: time and space. Time is hard enough, but what about space? This aspect of spiritual life is often overlooked. Certainly, church is an excellent place to grow in one's faith and connection with God, but most of us can't go to church every single day. We must find other ways and places to pursue God, and this can often be difficult.

Ask yourself this: what opportunities during the day do I have to be in complete silence and stillness, alone?

Then ask yourself: what do I usually fill this time with? Do I fill it with meaningful things or do I mess around and waste time?

We all need distractions and entertainment. Life would be a deathly bore without fun, and God wants our relationship with Him to be a joyous one, not a grudging “I guess so” because we have nothing better to do. But we should think about how much time we devote to movies, TV, video games, and refreshing our Facebook feeds. If we work to eliminate even a small fraction of this extra noise, we would find ourselves far more relaxed, at peace, and ready to open our hearts and minds to God.

But that still leaves the problem of physical place. Find something that you enjoy, but find relaxing: for me, it's sailing. For someone else, it may be reading. For another, camping. Find an activity that requires you to carve out a space of your own. See how easy that was, when you were doing it for a physical task or object? It's far easier to sort out space in a tent or a canoe than it is to sort out space in your heart for God, but the two are connected.

Once you are in a space of your own, doing something that you want to do, away from the demands and distractions of your life, sorting out that inner space will suddenly seem much easier.

All that is required is all that God is: time and space.