The Contemplative Life in the Age of Distraction

Jacob Benjamins is a SSHRC postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute for Christian Studies. He is the author of The Play of Goodness: Creation, Phenomenology, and Culture (Fordham University Press, 2025), and co-editor of two forthcoming collections on contemplation and philosophy: The Act of Contemplation: Metaphysics, Phenomenology and the Religious Life (University of Toronto Press) and From Contemplation to Critique: Key Figures of Social Spirituality in the Twentieth Century (Studies in Spirituality).

In the last few years, I’ve been researching and writing about Christian contemplative traditions that are filled with monastic and religious figures embodying intentional, repetitious, and liturgical rhythms nourished through practices of silence, solitude, asceticism, and stillness. One of the uncomfortable outcomes of this research has been that it exposed a disconnect between my academic work and my spiritual life. Most of the time, I’m preoccupied with my family, work, community, and a world that seems to be in perpetual crisis. It is hard to see how my life is “contemplative” in a way that resembles anything in these traditions.

I see myself as a long-term resident of an entry-level prayer room described by Teresa of Ávila in the Interior Castle. Written for a group of dedicated Carmelite nuns in the 16th century, she imagines the soul as a castle made from diamond or clear crystal. While there are many rooms in the castle, Teresa describes seven dwelling places corresponding to different levels of intimacy with God, who dwells at the centre. Sitting at the edge of the interior castle is a room where people use forms of vocal prayer and have a sense of the “beauty and dignity of the soul.” But Teresa notes that it can be hard to see God from this dwelling place, and its inhabitants remain preoccupied with the world.

Teresa is alluding to an enduring tension between contemplation and action variously rendered in Western traditions: Aristotle, for example, classically distinguishes between contemplation (theōria) as a practice of philosophical reflection that aims to “behold reality,” and the active life, characterized by practical affairs and engagement with moral and political questions. And in Christianity, this distinction gets reinforced through reference to the biblical figures of Martha and Mary. Focusing on practical matters resembles Martha’s focus on preparing dinner for Jesus and the disciples, while the one who contemplates resembles Mary beholding the divine at the feet of Jesus.

Although the distinction between contemplation and action has validity in many instances, this summer, I am offering a course that aims to complicate any kind of binary distinction between the two. Each week, we’ll engage with a broadly construed contemplative practice—digital fasting, deep reading, spiritual writing, time in nature, and more. And alongside these practices, we’ll have lectures and discussions, and explore readings from people like Simone Weil, Teresa of Ávila, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Martin Laird. We will see how contemplative rhythms and practices are not opposed to the active life but have the potential to reframe the meaning and purpose of how we inhabit delete the world.

My motivation for this course is twofold. As I mentioned, I’d like to bring my academic work into closer alignment with how I practice my faith. Offering this course is a way to do this with a community of learners instead of relying solely on the resources of my own internal discipline. This course is a way to engage philosophy and theology as a more integrative and comprehensive way of life rather than specialized or professionalized disciplines.

But more broadly (and importantly), my sense is that the rhythms and traditions of contemplative life offer a way to resist our overwhelming immersion in digital life. Beyond the ordinary demands of the “active life” today (such as work or family), there is the constant pull of technologies that receive enormous investments dedicated to capturing and monetizing attention.

These are not “neutral” technologies that are intended to be used according to an individual’s purposes. They are designed to support a neoliberal economic agenda that holds implicit rationalities and valuations. They transform not only what we think, but how we think. They transform not only what we do, but how we do it.

I see “The Contemplative Life in the in the Age of Distraction” as a course that can help us reorient attention and offer refreshing ways of inhabiting the world. It is a chance to read together and explore rhythms and practices that help resist the immersive presence of digital life.

It may feel counterintuitive to turn to contemplative practices in the midst of a world in crisis, but it may be the most “practical action” for the place in which we find ourselves.

I hope that some of you will join me! ◆

Jacob Benjamins is leading The Contemplative Life in the Age of Distraction, a course starting June 16, 2026, on how to cultivate a contemplative life amid political chaos, a crisis of truth, rapidly changing technology, and spiritual exhaustion. Each week pairs readings across philosophy and spirituality with practices like digital fasting, slow reading, spiritual writing, time in nature, and silence.

Whether you’re clergy, a lay leader, or simply weary of digital life, this is an invitation to read, reflect, and practise in good company. Register now, and let’s move from distraction to attention together. Find out more and register at: https://f2bf.icscanada.edu/courses.