Don’t do anything that will be in the Globe & Mail tomorrow morning” was the key moral guide among business types in my early days of Touchstone. That’s the least of our worries now – anything we may have done might show up on social media at a moment’s notice.

We are voracious devourers of information, some of it because of our vocation, or curiosity, or addiction to the various social media.  Perversely the more we devour in bite sized chunks the stupider we get. Our ability to concentrate for long periods and explore issues deeply is proven to diminish measurably.

Icons are crumbling everywhere. Protesters are outside Tom Hortons. Loblaws has to offer gift cards for bread price fixing. And we thought the folks south of our border had problems. The volume of irritants sometimes makes it hard to determine the real wounds in our human family. It seems crazy when North Korea’s Olympic figure skaters are a sign of hope for world peace.

The Scots’ version of the question “what do you want?” sounds like a pirate doing the asking. But it is a question our inner pirate asks at different stages of life, and often at the gateway of a new year. What we want out of a year tells us a lot about ourselves – and yet not asking the question can deny us vision and pleasure.

My quirky Irish friend, Dave, gave me The New Testament in Scots. Knowing my Scottish roots he actually hit a nerve for me as I occasionally read it when I’m reflecting on a gospel story. In this third week of Advent I particularly like the word “mirk”.