Have you ever noticed how our collective attention span is so very short? It has been a very challenging few weeks internationally and as each crisis erupts we seem to forget the last one. Wildfires in the West, the current Covid surge, flooding in Tennessee, the earthquake in Haiti, the unfolding disaster in Afghanistan, and now Hurricane Ida. Each of these have had their time at the top of the news, and then gradually slipped down the list and eventually even out of sight. One study based on the number of Google searches for information about a news story noted that even the biggest stories have a median cycle of seven days. One week. That's how long we are interested enough to find out more.
I am not really sure what we can do about it, except this. What if we all truly took a concern, a story, an area of need, and focused out attention on that? Learned all we could about it. Prayed about it. Discovered how we could make an impact on the situation and then took action? Rather than simply moving from crisis to crisis, like some sort of disaster tourists, really honing in on one particular issue and making it our own.
Obviously we can't solve all the world's problems. And just as obviously we shouldn't ignore any of them. But we can make a concerted effort to address one of them. Seriously. Prayerfully. Concertedly.
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