{"id":4513,"date":"2012-01-24T12:37:11","date_gmt":"2012-01-24T12:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/richardlittledale.wordpress.com\/?p=4513"},"modified":"2012-01-24T12:37:11","modified_gmt":"2012-01-24T12:37:11","slug":"noisy-butterflies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/2012\/01\/24\/noisy-butterflies\/","title":{"rendered":"Noisy butterflies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color:#333399;\"><strong>Silence and shouting<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Today the Vatican published Pope Benedict XVI&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vatican.va\/holy_father\/benedict_xvi\/messages\/communications\/documents\/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20120124_46th-world-communications-day_en.html\">message <\/a>for world communications day 2012. In it he underlines the importance of\u00a0silence\u00a0in the face of \u00a0the &#8216;<em>surcharge of stimuli and data that we receive&#8217;<\/em>. \u00a0Silence in digital\u00a0communications\u00a0sphere, like white space on a printed page, allows us to appreciate more fully what is there. \u00a0Who could argue with his call for Christians to &#8216;<em>become heralds of hope and salvation, witnesses of that love which promotes human dignity and builds\u00a0justice\u00a0&amp; peace&#8217; <\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>For those who are maxed out on their data feeds and drowning in a soup of news and opinion these words could not have come at a better time. However, we must also guard against a reflection which turns to\u00a0pianism. \u00a0Turning off the data tap in order to serve the world better when it flows again is one thing. Turning it off simply for the sake of a quiet life is quite another &#8211; and definitely not what the Pope is calling for.<\/p>\n<p>On the same day as the Pope&#8217;s address, Tearfund showed me their latest video &#8211; the caterpillar effect. \u00a0Sometimes the butterfly must emerge from the cosiness of its cocoon, flap its\u00a0wings\u00a0and make some noise:<\/p>\n<p>[youtube http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ytsVmqlqbX0?rel=0&amp;w=560&amp;h=315]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Silence and shouting Today the Vatican published Pope Benedict XVI&#8217;s message for world communications day 2012. In it he underlines the importance of\u00a0silence\u00a0in the face of \u00a0the &#8216;surcharge of stimuli and data that we receive&#8217;. \u00a0Silence in digital\u00a0communications\u00a0sphere, like white &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/2012\/01\/24\/noisy-butterflies\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4513"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}