The Super Bowl is here!  I used to think two teams played in the game.  After asking everyone I meet who they are going to root for, I found out it’s actually three.  This year it’s the Kansas City Chiefs, the San Francisco 49ers ,and the I Don’t Cares.  From what I can tell, the I Don’t Cares have an incredible fan base.   I think they might be going against the I Watch the Commercials.  Their fans don’t get passionate, but they are pretty consistent.

I admit, being a Cowboys fan, it’s hard to get excited this year.  So far, every team I have rooted for in the playoffs has lost. The Boys didn’t even make the playoffs.  The first week I went with the Saints and the Ravens.  The next week it was the Packers who fell.  You might want to avoid the Chiefs this week since that is who I’m going with.  After the Chiefs, I’m going with the I Watch the Commercials team.  

A lot of conversations this week have surrounded my choice for the Super Bowl.  Next week, I’m sure it will pick up even more.  After the Super Bowl, I think the impeachment proceedings rank #2 on the meter.  I can end that conversation real quick.  I have no idea what’s going on.  In 3rd place, my guess is work related questions to be answered.  After that, who cares?

They say women use more words in a day than men.  I’m not so sure about that one.  Actually, depending on your profession men and women tend to speak around the same amount of words a day.  We do talk a lot.  Linked In, The Learning Blog, says we use at least 7,000 words a day.  Another resource says we speak up to 16,000 words a day.  Let’s get that into useable terms.  Let’s say we are asleep for 8 hours a day and eating and other personal chores take another hour.  That means we are communicating via our mouth 15 hours a day.  With that in play we speak 467 to 1,066 words an hour.  Obviously, some speak more and some speak less.  

Anyway, talking is an important means of communication.  I wonder what the count would be if we included texting and emailing.  If you Google it, like I just did, you will find out that the average Joe or Jane sends and receives on the average 94 texts a day.  No wonder we are getting less done in a day than we used to.  When it comes to emailing, one resource said we send and receive close to 130 emails a day.  We send 40 and get 90.  Combine texts and emails and we are communicating another 224 times a day using words.  By the way, that’s 14.9 digital communications an hour per day.  

No wonder we are having a problem with silence.  No wonder God says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”  More and more people have a voice in our lives than ever before.  I wonder what GenAlpha, that’s the next generation being born these days, will be like since they will be the first generation with a means of communication in their hands basically from birth to death.  I just wonder what voice will dominate their lives?

 I’m not so sure this is going in a good direction.  After taking a couple of moments looking at the statistics, I’m amazed and yet not surprised when an important question is asked and people respond, “I don’t know.”  I used to say, “You are an adult, you know; you don’t want to face the answer.”  I’ve stopped that one.  With so many voices running our lives, I actually think we don’t know anymore.  It’s plumb too noisy.

Kenny Chesney, country singer, sang a song in 2016 titled “Noise.” The chorus summed it up.  “Yeah ,we scream; yeah, we shout til we don’t have a voice in the streets, in the crowds; it ain’t nothing but noise droning out all the dreams of this Tennessee boy. Just tryna be heard in all this noise.”

As we read the gospels, we find a lot of commotion around Jesus.  It’s pretty noisy if you ask me.  Here he is teaching the disciples, fighting off the religious leaders with a constant file of those in need of his healing touch.  They say we only have about 10% or less of Jesus’ words.  Can you imagine the Bible if we had just double that?  We would need a forklift to carry it to church on Sunday.  I forgot; few carry it to church anymore.  

Here Jesus is with all the noise around him.  I was reading in Matthew, and twice he ended up feeding the crowds.  One was over 5,000 people and the other was over 7,000.  That’s a lot of people.  That’s a lot of noise.

What did Jesus do?  He got away from it.  Why did he get away and go on a walk?  To commune with the Father.  He had a purposeful retreat.  It wasn’t a vacation.  It was a means to communicate with the Father.  I know it is not uncommon to have our days filled with noise from about 6 a.m. till our head hits the pillow.  With I-devices we can have more noise and nobody else gets to hear it long into the night.  Maybe more than ever we need to purpose some alone time.  Not so much to let our ears rest.  A time away to let our hearts be reset by the words of the living God who we hope and pray never goes silent.  If he does, duck!