The wireless device as tyrant

The wireless device, a morally ambiguous piece of equipment, has become a tyrant. What Thomas Merton said in 1961 is eerily prophetic: "This becomes a kind of religious compulsion without which people cannot convince themselves that they are really alive, really 'fulfilling their personality.' They are not 'sinning' but simply making asses of themselves, deluding themselves that they are real when their compulsions have reduced them to a shadow of a true person" (New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 85-6). The modern person doesn't live by text alone, but the continuous stream of texts, Facebook updates, and tweets suggest that many, too many, of us believe that WiFi is the very air we breathe.

How many meetings are interrupted now by coworkers glancing at an incoming text? How many romantic evenings are botched by a screen lighting up? How many people must die before we learn to turn things off?

Get free.

Put the thing down for awhile.

Be human.

If you can't, name it for what it is, an addiction, and get help.

Keypad as needle, wireless as drug

You'll never truly be free until you face your compulsions. Unless you can say "no" to your bodily appetites not only will you not be able to pray, but you'll not be able to resist the maddening choices that assault you every day. Your sanity and your spiritual vitality depend on being able to resist impulsive action. So long as you eat or drink or smoke whatever you want, so long as you indulge in whatever sensual stimulant arouses you, so long as you cannot turn off your cell phone or close down your Facebook page for awhile you're a slave to external impulses that overshadow, abuse, and diminish your interior identity.

There are some who are hooked to texting and tweeting as disastrously as a junkies were hooked to heroine when I was young.

The keypad is their needle and wireless is their drug.

Is it yours?

The way beyond the rising hatred around us

Hatred's making a come-back.  Across the board.  So easy to fall in behind this new bigotry and take part.  I ran across this today in my early reading--from Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation:

"Those who cannot love feel unworthy, and at the same time feel that somehow no one is worthy.  Perhaps they cannot feel love because they think they are unworthy of love, and because of that they also think no one is worthy.  The beginning of the fight against hatred, the basic Christian response to hatred, is not the commandment to love, but what must necessarily come before in order to make the commandment bearable and comprehensible.  It is a prior commandment, to believe.  The root of Christian love is not the will to love, but the faith that one is loved. The faith that one is loved by God.  That faith that one is loved by God although unworthy--or, rather, irrespective of one's worth!"

How to keep from clobbering yourself and others

Nonjudgment requires humility. "Have no confidence in your own virtuousness. Do not worry about a thing once it has been done. Control your tongue and your belly" (St. Anthony). And it requires patience, a patience that trusts that God will work all things out and that you are rarely competent to judge the path rightly. In fact, it knows that you by your own presumption will usually screw things up.

Nonjudgment, therefore, is nourished by a contemplative nonattachment to the false self.

If you're attached to the many masks of your false or fallen self, you'll be unable to judge rightly when necessary and instead will probably end up clobbering yourself and others.

Severe depression: medication as grace

Here's important testimony from a reader who has lived through severe depression and offers some important advice regarding the use of medication.  Depression sufferers and their supporters, please listen to this!  (A response to my recent post: Light on Severe Depression.)

As a pastor who was hospitalized with clinical depression and anxiety and stress syndromes, I can add my personal AMEN to what you have shared, Chris.

The church certainly remains behind the eight ball on this one. In my congregation’s case (at the time), they carried out a better model. They teamed with my presbytery (regional governing body) to create a team to take care of both me and the congregaton’s ministry (liaison with the session [governing board]). The session granted me a three-month, paid leave of absence.

I had the grace, space and time to rest and get well, under the care of an excellent Christian psychotherapist and a quality psychiatrist, who found just the right medication.

Speaking of the latter–STAY WITH YOUR MEDS TO THE END OF THE REFILLS, my friends.

Thinking you’re better just because the symptoms go away is a BAD REASON to stop your meds without careful consultation with your physician(s). You’ll just dig a whole that ends up being harder to climb out of than before.

And depression sufferers: IT DOES GET BETTER. Indeed, it often takes a lot of time, hard work, and trial and error–but you’ll find God in the midst. That’s a promise fulfilled in my case!