But in contrast to this immediacy, and the breaking news of the moment, “the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning” (Lam. 3:22–23). The morning is when we “look back intelligently and look forward hopefully,” writes O’Donovan. And yet, “the media’s ‘new every morning’ (quickly becoming ‘new every moment’) is, one may dare to say, in flat contradiction to that daily offer of grace. It serves rather to fix our perception upon the momentary now, preventing retrospection, discouraging deliberation, holding us spellbound in a
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