Days away from internet access brings a calmer reflection. Being in touch isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Out of touch with bad news brings relief to the body.
If living in the developed world means being on edge all the time, I’d prefer a less developed one — maybe a teepee with smoke signals for communication. Anxiety is real enough without the constant sting of bad news from far away and beyond my small sphere of influence.
Madison Avenue loves my anxiety. It preys on what can only be prayed about. An ad agency is no praying mantis! It loves green but its antennae hunt for the anxious selves who confuse wants with needs, buying the things we do not need if we believe we only exist by having them.
Stillness and being are not their thing. Selling is their game. They don’t pray. They prey on well-trained animals, ringing Pavlov’s bell for manufactured tastes and smells, while down on Wall Street Monday’s opening bell opens the door of hornets’ nest.
Like the praying mantis, the non-preying prayers live far from the bells. In touch with what’s worth much more than it’s cracked up to be: a less bad news world where humans live teepee-lives in touch with the body . . . in the stillness of time.
“Their aim is to confound the plans of the afflicted, but the LORD is their refuge.” [Psalm 14:6, The Book of Common Prayer]
- Gordon C. Stewart, wilderness cabin, northern Minnesota, September 3, 2017
Views from the Edge 
This is why I say fervently, “Thank God for J.S. Bach.” I choose Bach because, well everybody knows why. I include Mozart, Palestrina, Schumann, Brahms, Vaughan Williams and at least a hundred more. I can retreat into their music as surely as into a teepee in upstate Minnesota. And it’s a good thing — I can no longer get into a teepee, or at least once in I couldn’t get out. 🙂
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If J.S. Bach does that for you, I too thank God for J.S. Bach. Re: the northern Minnesota teepee, we’re at the cabin for a few days. Look for the next two Views from the Edge essays.
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Thank you, Gordon.🙂
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My pleasure. Always.
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Lovely tepee! that’s how mine was supposed to look, but I had crooked poles. Tepees are great places for peace. There’s something about them. They always seem to contain a little piece of peace.
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Thought of yours when I was writing this piece.
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Enjoy remote Northern MN… It is the strange weather patterns that are bothering me…. My cousin who lives in Houston, but thankfully avoided being flooded, then the smoke danger alerts where I grew up from the smoke from the wild fires in all the states west of them… .as well as Canada….. and the perpetually red skies at sunset there….
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Yes, some news won’t go away. Like climate change and the changing weather patterns that remind us of who we are, and are not, in the midst of nature itself.
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