Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Social Networking Experiments

There was a recent story about social networking. Ok, there have been many stories recently, about social networking. In one, particular story there was a comment about the number of people who are checking Facebook updates on their smartphones before they get out of bed, or perhaps they get onto Facebook on their computer (poor saps, with such obsolete equipment) while getting their first cup of coffee. A minister on staff of a rather large church that will use time in the morning with facebook, email, and other social networking as her time for personal meditation. This is a younger person who
may be quite comfortable with multi-tasking. Still, I am not so sure how well this would work. I could imagine as I go through the status updates, invitations, game requests and birthday greetings, that I could pause to hold each person in my thoughts and vision holding them into God’s grace. Honestly, if I pause very long to think about the persons whose messages are filling my news feeds and inbox, it’s usually not so grace-filled.

Whatever happened to the idea of starting the day checking in with another Friend, the greatest Friend we have? There was a time when the folks I knew would start their day with time for quiet, for devotion, for prayer, for renewing a Divine connection. There was a time when the first thoughts of the day were encouraged to be thoughts about the One who loves us so much that we were created in the Image of Love. There was a time when the last thoughts of the day were ones of reflecting on the things that had been done, and the things left undone during the day, and giving thanks for the goodness of what is.

I wonder if starting and ending the day with social networking is as nurturing of the soul as starting and ending the day networking with God. I wonder if I were more intentional about starting and completing my day with spiritual networking how that might shape the social networking I do, in between.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for the reminder. It certainly is easy to get caught up in things that are relatively unimportant while neglecting the people and things that are. Spiritual networking - I like it!

    ReplyDelete