Not long ago I stumbled upon an interesting report describing the amount of information “consumed” by the average American household. The analysis was produced by the University of California in San Diego and reported in the New York Times.
The typical American household, it turns out, consumes buckets and buckets of data every day – 34 gigabytes per consumer, approximately, and 100,000 words. The average consumer does not actually read so very many words, of course. They simply pass by our eyes or waft by our ears, on average, 100,000 times per day. Buckets of gigabytes pass by our eyes, too – digital media of every sort, music, video, games, and so on. A full-length motion picture – with subtitles, supplemental interviews, multiple language tracks, etc. – will fit easily on a four gigabyte DVD. We consume the equivalent of eight DVDs, on average, every single day.
But let’s be honest: we are little the wiser for it.
In 1985, Rutherford D. Rogers complained famously, “We are drowning in information and starving for knowledge.” One of the world’s most respected librarians – in charge of the university library at Yale at that time – this man would know, I suppose. Approximately 800,000 books were published around the world in 1985, and another 400,000 periodicals. During the course of the year, Rutherford added 175,000 of these volumes to the library at Yale, requiring approximately five miles of additional shelf space. “The old sausage grinder is going to turn out more sausage than you can eat,” Rutherford explained colorfully. “There are too many books.”
It turns out that wisdom cannot be measured by shelf space. Wisdom requires focus and filtering – not how many words cross our path day-by-day, but the sort of words we choose to take in. We Twitter, and Facebook, and email, and text. But about what, exactly?
We find a simple, spiritual “library science” at work in the Bible. Consider a verse at the end of the Gospel of John: “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written” (21:25). John isn’t interested in writing endlessly about “many other things.” He has something more focused and fundamental to communicate. “I write these things to you… so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). John is not aiming at miles of shelf space. He wants to make a difference.
Paul applies the same sort of focused filter: “I didn’t try to impress you with polished speeches and the latest philosophy. I deliberately kept it plain and simple: first Jesus and who he is; then Jesus and what he did – Jesus crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2, The Message). Christian “library science” is not so interested in adding gigabytes from “the old sausage grinder.” It trends in exactly the opposite direction: actual encounter, deep and robust, with very few words day by day – One Word, in fact. Plain and simple.
So read your newspaper: that is good. But don’t neglect the only Word that matters in the end. Watch a video if you have the time or plug in a tune on your iPod. But don’t overlook the Message and the Melody that will genuinely feed your soul. And share some words with your friends and neighbors whenever you have the opportunity; you may use, if you like, a few of the 100,000 varieties that will cross your path during the day. But if you care about your family and your friends – and the world itself that surrounds you – you will want to filter your words, a little, too. You will want to share One Word, above all – the life-giving Word they are waiting for.