Still a bit groggy, I made my way to the kitchen to get the morning coffee ready. I grab the dog’s leash to make sure he gets his quick morning relief and return just as the coffee finishes brewing.
I pour my first cup, make my way out to the porch with my phone, and plop myself down to see what’s happening in the world.
I know I should seek God before I seek my phone.
But that’s gotten harder over the years.
Discipline plays a part.
But so does being overwhelmed by life.
I want a distraction.
The idea of probing the depths of my heart feels exhausting compared to a quick dopamine hit.
I open my apps—Substack, of course, to see how many views I got overnight. Disappointed that there weren’t many, I soften the blow by reminding myself: It’s summer. People are busy.
I take a glance at a few posts but don’t want to engage.
There are great writers out there. Brilliant thinkers.
But I’m too tired to sift through it all.
Too many hot takes, status hunters, platform baiters, cynics, and critics.
Not enough prophets and poets.
Everyone is searching—
to matter,
to make a difference,
to be heard,
to be seen,
to be validated,
to understand,
to know,
and to be known.
But that’s not all.
Writers write to understand—
themselves,
their world,
and to help others to do the same.
I am searching too.
For validation.
To know I exist.
That I am unique,
That I matter.
That what I see might help explain what others feel.
What am I really searching for?
God.
But not now.
Not yet.
My performance-based spirituality resists Him.
Instead, I search for others to fill the ache of my emptiness.
Occasionally, I stumble across something of substance.
A sentence. A story.
Something real.
Something that doesn’t just tell me what’s wrong.
I know what’s wrong.
I live it.
I carry it.
I spread it.
What I don’t know is how to change it.
Am I stuck in an endless loop inside digital Babylon?
Is it a voluntary shelter-in-place in a windowed world?
Or a prison of creaturely comforts, numbing me from the real?
Am I cursed to watch but not enter it?
“Who will deliver me from this digital body of death?”
What I want is the right.
What I want is the real.
What I need is God.
Is God in digital Babylon?
He is.
But not in the way I am seeking.
I want Him on my terms—
efficient, comforting, ego-affirming.
But He wants my real.
The honesty of a heart trapped in an endless maze of distraction and curated personas.
He reminds me of the real.
Digital Babylon is not my home.
I am part of the real.
My life is lived in the everyday—
Not in the illusions of capcuts and clickbaits,
But in the mundane.
It’s the generations of those whose lives echo in memory,
Whose names history forgot,
Whose days were spent in the ordinary.
Legacies aren’t built on followers, views, or subscribers,
They’re forged in the memories of those seated in the front row of our lives.
And ultimately, we live before the Audience of One.
Through Him, I’m reminded:
Digital Babylon is not my home.
I have a home in real time now,
And a final home in the ultimate real at the edge of time.
My time is lived in—
Walking the dog.
Doing the dishes.
Giving a hug.
Praying a prayer.
Having a conversation about life and to-dos.
Pouring the second cup.
Telling stories.
Laughing and crying.
Dreaming and despairing.
Time in the everyday.
Common time in the workaday world.
Ordinary time in the daily grind.
This time is real, even in the stress of modern life.
It’s time inhabited by finite humans like me.
And it’s the way of the cross.
The cross in the workaday world is hard enough.
But what does it mean to carry the cross in digital Babylon?
What does it look like to pursue what’s right, not what’s platformed?
What does the dying to self look like in a world ruled by algorithm decrees, influencer priesthoods, and the magisterium of marketing?
How does that fit into the upside-down kingdom?
The first may be last in the upside-down kingdom,
But in digital Babylon, the currency is attention—and the endless pursuit of it.
Is that the real?
No.
Kingdom currency thrives on the margins,
Not the mainstream, despite the labels.
The evangelical industrial complex bows to the same algorithmic gods as the rest.
Perpetuating images we want, but may never obtain.
Is this dying of self?
Or just the desperate realization of our mediocrity?
How many of us are left outside the city gates?
But is mediocrity bad?
To whom?
We all live before the Audience of One.
We are all eternals.
It’s not that Substack is bad.
It’s a place of ideas, expression, emotion, and revelation.
The problem is not Substack.
It’s me.
It’s you.
Substack cannot deliver what we’re all aching for,
Even the best writers among us.
I want the real.
I think you do too.
I don’t want AI.
No shame here—it’s a powerful tool.
A pseudo-liberator, helping us push past our intellectual boundaries.
But it’s made me skeptical. Of everyone and everything.
“Who shall deliver me from this digital body of death?”
Cynicism and banality are the watchmen on the walls of this city.
But I long for different sentries—truth and justice,
prophecy and poetry,
embodied grace.
I want real.
Where the gospel reigns in the upside-down lives of God’s people.
Seen in rhythms and rebellions against modern aspirations we’re all supposed to chase.
I go on.
The real world calls.
Longing and hope.
Right and real in the common life.
A dopamine detox for a wanting soul.
Perhaps I’ll mow the yard.
Have another cup.
I will not find the real in digital Babylon today.
Only lamentation and longing.