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I’ve been writing and blogging my way through life and faith at Just Showing Up for close to eight years now. What began as a free and easy way to update family and friends about our pending adoption eventually gave way to a delightful means of building community and connection. It may sound funny, but it’s true: I love blogging. More than that, it has become clear over the years that I love to write, and I\’m really kind of excited, because what was once an occasional hobby is quickly becoming more of a Real Thing.
The Catholic Scene
But do you want to know something funny? The online Catholic “scene”, if you will, is something I’ve come to have some seriously mixed feelings about. Yes, in spite of my being (an admittedly very small) part of that scene, I regularly find myself shifting uncomfortably in my otherwise comfy desk chair over the seemingly-constant posturing, debate, and undue emphasis given to what I shall hereby call “Catholic Online Issues.”
The most obvious one being anything and everything related to Pope Francis, of course, but there are others. Check back in a few years, and it\’ll probably be something else.
It’s fascinating to me, because I\’m a convert. While there were a few Catholic blogs I came to appreciate, once upon a time, and which certainly helped me in my journey to conversion, I did not ultimately become Catholic because of so-and-so’s online presence, or because I thought the current Pope’s vestments were the best ever, or because I really related to what was being discussed on Facebook during that particular five minutes. No, I began investigating the audacious claims of the Roman Catholic Church, because of some nagging questions I’d had about marriage and children as they related to my life. The first Catholic writing I ever read was an encyclical written a long time ago, by a Pope now dead.
The element that kept me up at night and made me willing to investigate the possibility of BECOMING Catholic was this strange notion that the Church wasn’t teaching anything new. She was merely protecting and promulgating the original deposit of faith that had been handed down from the apostles. Unlike every single church I’d been a part of up until that point, these people believed—really, truly believed—that they had the fullness of the faith, and were anchored in what seemed to me to be the only historically plausible expression of Christianity. There is a beautiful peace that comes with not having to reinvent the wheel or read every single book in the theology section of the Protestant bookstore, because you now belong to the same tradition as St. Augustine, Blessed Mother Theresa, GK Chesterton, and the church fathers.
The Digital Continent
So I worry that in our zeal to (rightly) evangelize what Pope Benedict XVI referred to as the “digital continent,\” we may be (wrongly and to our detriment) exchanging the rich and timeless-therefore-relevant faith of our predecessors for the “tyranny of the now.\” I worry that we are so hyper-focused on current Catholic news, and discussion, and what Pope Francis may or may not have said (and meant) that we are forgoing authentic and nourishing face-to-face relationships with our fellow parishioners and priests. I worry that we are trading our birthright for a shallow, and ultimately meaningless substitute.
If you’re wondering how someone like me can simultaneously hold the positions that a) blogging is a worthwhile endeavor and b) people are putting way too much stock in what’s happening behind their computer screens, it’s because I believe that in its proper context, online interaction really does have untold potential for good. Truly. Blogs in particular have the ability to do something that physical books, or even more “official” online publications, can’t—they offer the reader a glimpse into what it looks like to live and breathe a faith system. Blogs allow for a window into a real person’s thoughts, experiences, and ponderings. That oppourtnity opens wide the door for possibility, because there are many, many people out there who would otherwise never encounter a consecrated religious, or a dad well-versed in Thomistic philosophy, or a mother raising eight children. The internet is, for better or worse (and really I do think it’s a little of both), an unthreatening way for people to try on new ideas. So we must be there, doing the long work of evangelism and love.
Yet at the same time, we have to remember that life is not lived two-dimensionally. The creeds and tenets that comprise our ancient faith do not shift with the tides of popular opinion or modern thought. Ultimately, the internet, while a good tool for doing so, ought not be completely necessary to pursuing God, receiving the Sacraments, or living well. We must take care to invest—really, truly invest–in parish life and real community, battling the threat of isolation and loneliness with charity, connection, and words spoken face-to-face. We must open not only our laptop,s but also our homes and our tables, our arms and our hearts. We must remember that “what happens online” is not the end all, be all, of the world or of humanity. It is a shadow, a manifestation, an expression. It is not everything.
Personally, I know that my day-to-day existence of raising children, the occasional dinner out with friends, attending Mass, scrubbing bathrooms, and yes writing too, is largely unaffected by the latest combox happening or Facebook scrap. When I perform an examination of conscience and consider how I attended to my God-given duties that day/week/month, most often the only thought given to the world wide web is how it distracted me from doing better things. It’s a balancing act, a means that must not become an end.
Staying Connected to Life
So yes, let us freely and joyfully engage online.
Forge and cultivate connection and find and build your platform. If you do not have flesh-and-blood local community, join a virtual tribe and seek solidarity there. Read articles and blogs and find creative ways to share the gospel with an increasingly technology-driven generation. Utilize social media for entertainment and for learning, and as an occasional reprieve from whatever your daily grind might look like.
But don’t give up on face-to-face friendship. Don’t give up on your parish. Don’t give up on classic books, sacred tradition, or the early church fathers—all of which remain 100% relevent today, forever and always, because the faith itself is unchanging. If that sounds rigid or boring or unrealistic to you, well, God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. We may want (and need!) to adapt our methods of evangelism, or ways of relating to the culture, but that is a different issue altogether. I believe this nuance to be of utmost importance. Don’t be afraid of the fact that we are irrevocably anchored to brilliant philosophers, courageous martyrs, and quietly humble nuns of old. It is an astoundingly rich and diverse heritage we boast, and one that ought not be forgotten in our world of celebrity-worship and addiction to Facebook \”likes\”.
As a blogger, there are few things I relish more than hearing from readers with questions or who have, for whatever reason, found encouragement in my clumsy words. Because that’s kind of the point–connection, and sharing my life experiences in hopes that they may be helpful to someone in even a small way. But I am also very aware that it is all too easy to lose perspective, to begin to believe that what is happening online is all that is happening, or the most important thing that is happening. When really? The screen has its uses and blogging has its place, but those things actually lose their effectiveness and potential for good when they are stripped from their proper context.
My hope for the coming year is that I will devote less time to the trivialities of the screen, and more time to reading quality spiritual writing. When I sit down to write, I want to do just that, and not get tied up in following silly online discussions that have virtually no bearing on me or on my life. I want more Jesus, less noise, and a stronger sense of my faith as it truly is, as opposed to how it might be framed by people on my ever fleeting Facebook feed.
How about you? Have you found a good way to integrate the virtual world with your faith? Do you have solid community in your local parish or diocese? If not, do you have plans to cultivate real-life connections with fellow Catholics? Is this a value for you? I would love to hear how you navigate these issues in our present age of social media dependence!
© 2014 Brianna Heldt. All rights reserved.
10 thoughts on “A Blogger\’s Perspective: Tyranny Of The Virtual Now”
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I really, really like this, Brianna! Thank you for writing it, and I think you should think and pray on what you’ve written here more so that you can write more about it!
I’m a graduate student, and I’ve had to back away from being online, else I wouldn’t get anything done. When so many things are accessible online, and when you know that some of what you encountered online (Fr. Barron, for example), helped you come back to the Church, it’s all too easy to think that you’re “putting the things of God first” when you get too much into the Catholic online world.
Moreover, the new evangelization is about old questions and familiar territory: how does God use everything He’s given you to make you holy, to be the person He truly means you to be that means becoming more fully integrated through, with, and in Him? For this reason, Melinda Selmys very astutely wrote about how God isn’t looking for cookie-cutter saints, and Flannery O’Connor wrote that “the Truth shall make you odd.” This is a Lumen Gentium teachable moment, and it speaks to how we can’t afford to be shallow– because being shallow robs us of living an authentic Christian life, and it essentially means that we will think we can “go out to the peripheries of human existence” and evangelize with nothing.
Of late, I’ve noticed the danger of online discussions that become truncated (and yes, made shallow)– not just those about Pope Francis, but also Benedict XVI. Almost all discussions of Joseph Ratzinger have become narrowed to liturgical matters to some extent. It’s not enough that media with more secuarlist motives pit Francis against Benedict; a good many Catholics risk enabling that bifurcation and false dichotomy, even if they don’t mean to, when they don’t actually read any Ratzinger beyond liturgical matters and have not thought about how those liturgical matters really do connect to other things in a far deeper sense before they weigh in, and they keep posting the same fears and worries about the Latin Mass in almost every forum they visit. They could be bringing their fears before the Lord and waiting for answer, instead of blathering on the Internet about how Francis is a “modernist heretic.”
Moreover, I would like to add a caveat or at least an addendum to your very spot-on comments about commitment to parish life and building community. Because those things are necessary. But they are not “it” as far as the Church is concerned. A good number of Catholics– certainly in the United States– whom I observe online have a highly constricted idea and understanding of “Church.” Way too many seem not to have any idea of “Church” outside their parish, or diocese, or if they’re lucky “the Vatican” qua some worldwide hierarchical bureaucratic structure (that may or may not be doing stuff that they “don’t like”), and next to no idea of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ built on St. Peter and through the Sacraments. …now, does anyone really think that the Mystical Body of Christ is meant to stay behind the walls of a parish (even if parish work is crucially important) or at home? And when a lot of people in general think “transcendence,” they tend to think international relations, global markets, and technological innovation without any question of whether any of it should be subject to Someone.
We are meant to live as Catholics out in the world, to choose for Christ wherever we are– in our homes, our parishes, our workplace, on the street, anywhere and everywhere. When we don’t do that, stuff like Francis talking about a “theology of women” either get denigrated or don’t even register on some people’s radars, or get squeezed into particular conceptions because we’ve become too used to having certain kinds of discussions in particular ways (note, for example, all of the discussions of NFP that reduce it primarily and almost exclusively to family size, with no mention of Sacramental grace and the chastity needed for self-gift and fuller integration of the human person). I’ve noticed also that whenever we talk about the vocation of motherhood, we tend to think exclusively biologically– and therefore materialistically– when if we profess to believe what we do, that human beings are matter and spirit, and profess to believe in the Incarnation, materialism is arguably inexcusable and unreasonable, and certainly illogical. I think these are some of the reasons among many why Francis’s comments on proselytizing are important: words are necessary sometimes, but do we live in and reflect the Word Made Flesh?
If the Church, in her essence, is Communion with Christ, then let’s think more about those implications. We should also be praying with them. Here’s another telling difference that I think adds to any very constricted sense of “Church”: Catholics don’t just “go to church.” Catholics go to Mass. In addition, when it comes to ecumenism, respect of differences matter, because bad ecumenism is highly problematic at the very least. As Catholics, we don’t just claim that the Church has been given the fullness of the Truth. As Catholics, we also claim that the Pope actually, always, and everywhere knows Who Jesus Christ IS. So yes. A “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” matters. …but what do we mean by “Jesus”? Getting that wrong, as you and I both know, always falls short right at the very heart of things.
Also, you’ve alluded to how technology can reinforce received thinking about historical rupture when you astutely talk about being of the same tradition as the Church Fathers, and not thinking that we have to reinvent the wheel every time. Americans, perhaps especially, tend to think that they have the power to “begin the world anew.” If we believe that Christ is beginning and end, past, present, and future, alpha and omega, and Lord of all time, then claims about “making the world anew” should humbly give us good reason for pause as well as prudence.
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OK, I read your article and I want to respond, because, I enjoyed what you wrote. SO, I’ll try this. I work at The Fathers of Mercy, in KY. I’m sure you must know Fr. Bill Casey and Fr. Wade, because, they are on EWTN. I am going to video tape Fr. Ben Cameron this morning. My wife is their cook. Needless to say we get great Homilies and the faith community there is Great! They ALL tell me that if they go give a Mission in a Parish and only one person responds, or if they hear a confession from a person that’s been away from the church for many years, their life as a priest has been successful! I have also been told many time that I should remember that we are in a WAR! So, if Blogging helped you enter the Church it’s a good thing. I’m really happy I found this site. If fact I have been telling the Fathers of Mercy about it. Just keep writing the truth, WHEN YOU HAVE TIME, in the honest way you just did! MAYBE, you might help another person like yourself come into the most beautiful Catholic Church. Then it will ALL be worth it in the end. God Bless You, John
John, what a beautiful response. Thank you for finding us. Please visit us often and spread the word. You can also read us on your iPhone through “Newsify” and on your Android, or other cellphone through “Pulse.” May God bless you abundantly in the New Year. Peace be with you. Diane ^i^
Diane, you made my day! I can’t wait to tell my wife and ALL my kids what you responded to me. They are ALL going to tell me, “Dad, you really need to upgrade the Flip Phone”. Jesus has the most wonderful sense of humor. Go to: http://www.fathersofmercy.com the Fathers are posting their homilies there. Fight the Fight, NEVER, give up! Your Brother, John
OK, true story, I went and told my wife, Liz, what you said and she was in the middle of E-mailing one of my daughters from her phone. I think she is still laughing! I’m going to write a song, “Flip Phones”. God Bless, John
Hey, John, don’t think you are alone. I just gave up my flip phone for a smartphone not long ago….however, I call it my “dumbphone” because I’m still learning how to use it. It’s pretty cool. I feel like a teenager! Of course, if my teenager heard that she’d say, “Oh, mom, please, no!” Thanks for the Fathers of Mercy link. Will check that out. Peace be with you.