Nativity Catholic Church
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Too Accessible?
A "FIRESTARTER" Spiritual Essay by Rev.
Dr. Benjamin
Berinti, C.Pp.S. I think I am about as “well-connected” as I ever will be. Now, I’m not talking about “connected” in The Godfather/Goodfellows way of things; nor do I mean it in the sense of access to wealth and power (although, I suspect the threadbare ties I may have to either of these are not going to strengthen). Here’s the point: I am at my limit for being “well-connected—electronically! And I offer you not a shred of shame or embarrassment in revealing that I am limited to a cell phone and a two-year+ old laptop. While I do carry a cell phone (useful only when I remember to keep the battery charged), alas, it takes no pictures, plays no video games, is incapable of transmitting sports scores or the game of the week, doesn’t play Beethoven’s 5th Symphony while I’m driving, cannot send a distress signal into the night like Batman’s floodlight, and doesn’t vacuum the floor when I accidentally knock it off the dresser. And even with the phone I do possess, I have never and will never “text-message” anyone! I think I have actually received a text-message or two (is that what the occasional weird ring-tone has been trying to tell me for a couple of months?). But despite my past studies of New Testament Greek, coupled with my love for Crosswords, I can’t for the life of me figure out what those stupid letters in the message mean. I’m not even that good making out the cutesy slogans on vanity license plates. A couple of years ago, I was given a wonderful laptop computer as a gift, and while I do use it for writing when I travel to the beach or go on vacation, weeks at a time can go by without me ever opening a program, except for updating the Norton Anti-Virus! That’s about as far as I can go in what to me is the thoroughly confusing realm of modern mega-connectedness. So, I get a good laugh out of watching people tote around not one, but several phones, “blackberry-ing” their way into electronic bliss, “bluetooth-ing” themselves into importance, and “tvo-ing” everything that they’re afraid of missing. Quite frankly, I don’t see the point of all these toys. Now, surely there are people who are more “important” and “busier” than me, but I think I can hold my own when it comes to responsibilities and being “on call,” but I seem to make my way in this world quite efficiently and calmly without all the gadgetry. In a recent Book Café selection, I thoroughly enjoyed Margaret Becker’s prescriptions for Coming Up For Air. Becker commandeered a major chunk of “time out” in her life about 10 years ago, and during that exploration she set a course of re-prioritization that she has lived and continuously reaffirmed up to the present day. In struggling with the more we are all supposed to be engaged in (i.e., be more, do more, see more, earn more, run more, diet more, spend more, obsess more…), Becker made this startling statement:
What a radical question! While we can all huff and puff about the myriad of people and things and responsibilities and expectations that squeeze the life out of us, I’d be hard pressed to identify much of it as “critical”. Even now, as I type these words, and I’m working up a short list to pitch under my own “critical” column, I begin to form another question—equally as challenging, if not more complicated—“critical” for whom? The few little items that creep to the surface are not really things that I find critical—they generally tend to be things that others have told me are critical, and therefore, I had better attend to them with abandon. It makes me wonder, who is setting the agenda for my life, and if the balance is clearly tipped away from my own sense of what is relevant, important, dare we say “critical.” If many things are “critical” only because others say so, it is any wonder that I do not choose to redirect, slow down, or become less accessible.
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