Christ's Initiative Among Us

I was about to get cracking on the standing challenges here, when Fred posted a follow-up. That brief conversation we had at the Exercises about this forum was so provocative for me, because immediately Fred thought in terms of a question instead of a topic.

When we first started thinking about a common blog, some time ago, I think I imagined an online magazine, with a common theme or just individual opinion pieces with a CL flavor. And when the blog foundered (completely for some time, and then sporadically since we revived it), I thought we just needed to somehow rededicate to the idea. Fred's point turned this assumption inside out.

And then there has been the surprising friendship that has bloomed in a seemingly inhospitable place, the electronic wasteland. The breakfast with Alex and Suzanne at diakonia. That hour I spent with Karen and Fred on the way home from the aerospace competition in Kansas. Since then, many times a post by one of you has been the thing I needed badly as a judgment for my life, without you knowing that I needed that. In fact, the unity is a gift and a fact; there are times when advice is helpful or it isn't, but a life proposed is something renewed for every day.

Topics tend to be about ideas. What we're invited to is reality. As Suzanne wrote,

Now I recognize that Fred's original invitation (before he appealed to me personally) was to the same adventure, exactly the same one; but in the first case, I was too distracted to recognize the invitation. The greatest knowledge that I gained from my adventure in Brazil, was the recognition that any invitations posted here are for my life.

I started taking pictures as a way to enhance my blog; instead, reality is insistent. I look and learn from the pictures. I'm interested not in being a professional Catholic or a specialized cielini, but in living my life fully. The protagonist in Notes from the Underground says scornfully: "Soon we shall invent a method of being born from an idea." I have had some extended arguments over the question of media being relational. But after this week of testimonies about the life of Tim Russert, on and off the air, we see it's true that every situation can be lived humanly. Also, while this medium values opinions, we learn to value unity. I was very struck by the way the Holy Father met President Bush, respectfully as a person, beyond all political concerns. By all reports, they had a very cordial ("of or for the heart") meeting. Often what happens online is a slashing of human experience into categories and manifestos. What is happening with us is something human--that's why it helps me.

I'm glad Fred continues to ask about gestures. Because we're human, we have to have such structures. We need to have a time to stop everything and have the evening meal with family. We have to show up for work at a particular time and place, whatever form that takes. Something I love about the movement (well lots of things, but this is one) is the way getting together is never about solving problems but recognizes a fact. From the bottom up, there is always something objective proposed. For our regional diakonia, we read something to prepare and then talk about it before we delve into the practical issues of organizing initiatives.

I would suggest as a simple gesture that we take a text to read together and discuss. Personally I prefer weekly because any longer and it's hard to commit; better accompanied with a question left open for some days, perhaps again a week. We don't need a School of Community online. It could be something interesting that we could grapple with and judge together. It may work better (as we do in fraternity, SoC, diakonia) to have one person lead for a time, and change later, rather than change weekly. Just some ideas. As Fred points out, the gesture makes us more available for what actually happens, the Event among us.

Is Blogging Inherently Disreputable?

Is blogging disreputable, a waste of time, a way to avoid responsibilities?

A book I have never quite had the courage to use in the classroom, The Un-TV and the 10 Mph Car: Experiments in Personal Freedom and Everyday Life by Bernard McGrane includes an exercise of three experiments in which students are to be quite mindful of watching TV. The experiments:
1. Watch any TV show for 15 minutes without turning on the sound.
2. Watch any news program for 15 minutes without turning on the sound.
3. Watch television for one half hour without turning it on.

McGrane reports that most students become quite angry at being forced to do this ridiculous thing, and complain bitterly that they wasted 30 minutes of their time. The discussion focuses on what they accomplished in the other 30 minutes (no sound) or in previous TV watching.

Much of the case Sharon presents against blogging could be used against television, the quilting or knitting habit that overtakes people. (one bumper sticker reads, "She who dies with the most yarn wins.") On the other hand, there are ways to do these activities that build up rather than detract from family life, that edify instead of stupify, that are moderate instead of addictive.

Blogging has two primary differences. It's new - so it's a NEW way of taking time from responsibilities etc, and therefore noticeable as TV watching is not. And it is moderately public; one's family or colleagues often know about the blog even if it's pseudonymous.

The argument so far merely suggests that blogging is probably no worse than many other hobbies: not a very strong defense.

The charge of feeding ego is interesting. People rarely brag that they watched a great night of TV. (They may get puffed up about their crafts...) The blogger is suggesting that her ideas might actually be worth reading. But she also opens the possibility of criticism, of hearing directly that her ideas are full of holes. The process of engaging in such an activity fosters a certain sturdiness in her mental processes. She may be selective about her topics, careful in her wording, more logical than she would be in casual conversation. When readers disagree, she will have to consider other viewpoints. (Politely in most religiously grounded blogs, but not everywhere.)

The things that blogging inherently fosters seem all to the good: logical thought, improved self-expression, engagement with ideas and culture. The problem is, of course, immoderation. If we are enlivened by a little blogging, we may do more. As the novelty wears off and we think we HAVE to blog ("what will the readers think?") we miss that thrill - and may do MORE blogging to try to get it back. Blogging becomes a responsibility all its own ... and we may enjoy being good at it, or receiving praise, so we do more.

If there is anything problematic in blogging and the many social-network applications, it's the way in which we can let an alternative world drive away our experience of the present moment and the people we see day to day. I am amazed that this new phenomenon, Twitter, has become so popular: who wants to report what they are doing, several times a day, in bursts of 140 characters? Who wants to know, moment by moment, what dozens of other people are doing? The answer appears to be: millions of us.

Modern people have found dozens of ways to divert, not time or responsibility, but attention and presence from those who are nearest and most important in our lives. Blogging can be one of them - but it need not take on that role.

Guilty as charged

«Blogging is something of a disreputable activity. It is time stolen from Responsibilities. It's for people with Egos. It's at best an Outlet.»

Well, yes - blogging is disreputable although blogs are becoming a respectable forum.

And time is precious, so we should be careful as to we use it. Is writing a good use of time for me? Is blogging a link between now and eternity for me or not?

As to egos, well yes. Who can write unless that they feel their words to have a distinct pitch (as Scotus might say)? So, yes, I am egotistical, I think that I am somebody (somebody who's being made). Hildegarde of Bingen in order to avoid arrogance resisted writing, but then she thought who was she to say no to the Almighty God who had indicated certain things to her. This claim is either terribly arrogant or profoundly humble.

That writing is a mere outlet is the most damning of the complaints. To paraphrase Monty Python, every desire is sacred and if a desire is wasted God gets quite irate. If blogging takes away from responsibilities (and it does); if blogging takes time (and it does); if blogging is an exercise of the I (and it is), then the only thing that makes it worthwhile is if it contributes to the work of man: to increase awareness and gratitude for everything, to deepen the human experience. So if blogging is a mere outlet, then to hell with it! Such activity can only make you blind - blind to the depths of things.

Blogging is not for everyone. Every blogger should make an act of contrition insofar as blogging is an escape, a distraction, or a waste of time.

"A book is a conversation that could not have taken place," writes Hans Urs von Balthasar. And so too is blogging is conversation that wouldn't otherwise happen. As such, blogging is a lesser substitute for conversation in life. It's presence in the form of absence. Plato criticized the written word for lacking context and rolling around like a loose stone. And yet, writing and even blogging can be a way to reach the corners and recesses of the wide world. There's a risk to writing, for words that have resonance in life and in the hand of the author must be met by the humanity of the reader who is willing to put himself on the line. I hope that it's worth the risk, the failure, and the betrayal of author and reader.

Freedom is ambiguous

Reading ahead a little in the chapter on freedom in Is It Possible to Live This Way? I came across the following passage, which resonates for me as I consider Sharon's challenge:

Only in the companionship are you recalled to this fascination with being or this awareness of our own fragility due to something that is a choice -- to be able to choose is a good, but to be able to choose evil is an evil, therefore it's ambiguous. Freedom isn't in a bad position; it's in a position that is still ambiguous. (page 78)

At this particular moment there are any number of things that I could be doing: I could be down in the backyard with my two youngest daughters, who are there picking strawberries together; I could be cleaning my kitchen; I could be preparing for our outing to the swimming pool; I could be putting my tomato seedlings in the ground...I have so many options, all of which are good and necessary. So why I am here, typing?

The companionship I discover among bloggers is no substitute for the community of my family and near neighbors that surrounds me. And yet, it is undeniable that the friends I have here, on the internet, are real; their companionship is real, also made of flesh and blood. This companionship truly does recall me to a "fascination with being" and an "awareness of my own fragility" in ways that are just as necessary and vital to my life as are the ways of my proximate community.

Speaking and writing are two different methods of expression, and each are necessary to life. I can say things in writing that I cannot say in speech; and I can understand things that I read that escape me when I hear them spoken out loud. Of course, each of the preceding statements may be reversed! To remove the possibility of reading/writing would mean to diminish me and impoverish my relationships with others.

What if, like Jean-Dominique Bauby, I were stricken with Locked-In syndrome? Perhaps, if my faculties went unused, they would atrophy. And yet, if I, like Bauby, could communicate somehow, I would work with what I had, even if it were only a single eyelid that could still blink. Since I am not locked in, however, not to use all that has been bestowed on me, would be to maim myself. It is a moral imperative that I use all of my humanity. To paraphrase something St. Paul said, my mouth cannot tell my hand, "I don't need you" and my ears cannot tell my eyes, "You're unnecessary."

I can (and do!) waste time doing any number of things that are worthwhile and socially acceptable. Any time that we just go through the motions or live our duties with resentment or forgetfulness, we are wasting our lives and the lives of those who are forced to put up with us. Or, at the very least, we are reducing them. To be fully alive, we have to be aware, we have to seek the meaning in all we do. And we can't be aware or seek meaning on our own. At least I know that I can't. I have a need, so deep and so real that it makes me tremble to think about it, for this companionship (a companionship which includes those I see and speak with, those with whom I write, and those rare few with whom I can do both), in which I can be fully myself and fully alive, using not only my ears and mouth, but my hands and eyes as well. I am called back to the knowledge that all the hairs on my head are counted when I am present here with my blogging friends, but in a way that is different and equally vital as the way I am called by the faces and eyes of those with whom I speak.

I am convinced that the commitment I have to my blogging companionship is just as important as the commitment I make to my School of Community. Each is a commitment to Christ, alive and active and incarnate in my life.

Blogs and Free Time

Fred, Sister Edith and I visited this last weekend at the Exercises as fellow bloggers. We very briefly talked about this common blog. I liked what Fred had to say about it, that we have to make the effort to stay together. He also had the great idea that one of us post a challenge to kick off a discussion, rather than just dropping in various pieces.

How about a postmodern question to give this blog a kick? Blogging is something of a disreputable activity. It is time stolen from Responsibilities. It's for people with Egos. It's at best an Outlet.

Last night I received this email at my Flickr account.

Hello,

I love many of the pictures that you share on Filckr and find inspiration though them, and also a simple tranquility that soothes me and brings comfort on those 'crazy zanny' days. :)

I have a question though, what is Communion and Liberation?

Thanks,
Hope

Normally, we endure and perhaps buy into a disdain for a medium which supposedly supplants human contact. Of course, the print medium has been used from the time the Gospels were committed to writing and continues to be a major evangelization tool of the Church. And learning was very limited before the printing press. Is it that blogs are so democratic and wide-ranging in value from the illiterate to the erudite? And we have to acknowledge an alarming tendency to escape on the internet to avoid the real thing. On the other hand, the nature of blogs and similar sites offers far more give-and-take between author/creator and reader/viewer than in traditional media.

I was stopped by this message. I have the usual confusion about this strange occupation which is work. Either I think of writing and photography as a way to assert my talents with the other tasks of life endured as necessary tedium, or contradictorily I think of (or use) it as an escape.

Fr. Giussani says we know what a person is like by how they spend their free time. So what's with this blogging and such that takes up so much free time?