austraLasia #2787
Spirituality-Technology:
what
shapes what?
BRATISLAVA: 24 March 2012
-- Yes, I know
Bratislava is not part of the EAO
Region, but it's where I happen to be
as I write this, and two separate
incidents have provoked the following
reflection: one was evening prayer
time, when I realised that I was the
only one in the room with a dead-tree
version of Evening Prayer (how
embarassing can that be in a digital
era!) and the second is an article
run by the Catholic Herald in the UK
which you can access by clicking
on the mobile phone above (There, does
that make up for the earlier
fault?).
But I ask myself - is it technology
that is to shape spirituality today
or can spirituality possibly help
shape technology? That question is
emerging in any number of forums,
including a number of Salesian forums
I have attended (often in the context
of Salesian formation but not
only). Wired Magazine ran an article
on the five toys that are
shaping the world today. Are there
similar 'toys' which we could help
shape in spiritual terms or which have
helped shape our spirituality?
1. The Clock
Don't forget the clock! It hasn't gone
away (yet). For most of us the
first thing we do and the last, in the
day, is to read a set of digits
on waking and on going to sleep (or do
you have a short prayerful
invocation first and last?)
Many a decision we make, no matter how
insignificant or world changing,
is shaped by what those numbers tell
us. It was 12th century monks who
invented accurate clocks with the hope
of standardising times of
prayer. Can we do something to return
the clock to that function
in a digital world? I use a
'consciousness bell' that sounds
randomly on my computer. It might
startle (or annoy) people in a
meeting, since I don'ìt control when
it can chime, but it certainly
calls attention to a moment of
silence! A digital 'Angelus' then? The
chime dies away within the space of a
Hail Mary.
2. Microphones
Video extension sites and Internet
campuses get all the attention these
days, but it was the microphone that
changed the way we think about
almsot anything in Church today. Visit
any ancient Church in Europe for
example and the pulpit is halfway down
the Church. No longer
necessary...
New Evangelisation is partly shaped by
the ability to project our
voices to ever-larger audiences.
Large, microphone-powered churches are
able to meet needs small ones can’t,
but at the same time, by extending
the reach of the pulpit, the
microphone has also dwarfed the
importance
of the altar. That technology has no
real part to play in the most
important and sacred act performed on
that altar - which brings us back
to the importance, however, of a human
proclamation of words, 'digne
attente ac devote'.
3. Twitter
There’s a Bible for every platform –
PCs, Macs, Android, iPhone, iPad,
even Windows Phone and BlackBerry have
Bible software with powerful
search abilities.
But long before the Bible went
digital, it was chopped up into
tweet-sized pieces called “verses.”
Then verse numbers were added and
standardised, once print technology
developed. In the early Christian
era nobody would have known what a
“verse” or a “chapter” was.
Two reflections here: I probably knew
how to repeat John 10:10 at ten
years of age. But it was just a
'tweet'. It took many yeaqrs to
understand that there's an entire
narrative holding things together.
Today, verse numbers make all kinds of
things possible, but in the end
its the narrative that holds things
together that's most important. One
wonders if we couldn't hold that in
mind in the twittersphere too and
do our part, at least, to help provide
a narrative that holds things
together - a Christ-inspired
narrative, of course.
4. Personal (Electronic) Publishing
Media ecologists like to say that
there has been a movement in
communication from oral back to
literate (Walter Ong sj for example).
In an oral culture, the leader is
naturally the oldest person who has
accumulated the most information and
wisdom. In a literate culture, the
leaders are those with money for books
and education. In the shift from
written texts to printed texts, single
leaders like popes and kings
lost (some of) their power to
Protestants and democracies.
Today the Internet gives everyone the
ability to publish. We have
blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and more
that we can use to share our
unfiltered opinions about everything
and everyone. The shift to
publicly sharing our thoughts, our
capacity find 'an audience' ready to
receive them, has enormous potential
for evangelisation. Have we really
taken that seriously? Have we taken
seriously enough the need to
form young Salesians who are already
naturally 'creators', to use these
publishing media for ministry?
5. Mobile Devices
Interesting to note the way that Don
Bosco Publications in the UK has
'gone digital'. Maybe, other than
Edebé, the largest publishing
enterprise in the Salesian world, DB
Publications UK comes next in
tackling the advance into such a
simple things as ebooks. Congrats to
them for that!
Which brings me back to yesterday
evening's prayer session. One still
hears people who tell us that if we
read the scriptures from an
e-reader or tablet device, it is no
longer the Word of God! Can
we really evangelise today's world if
we continue along such
lines? Personally I doubt it.
Instead, it is time to get creative
with all the opportunities we have
now and the many more that will come
in the rapidly advancing future.
And then there is Web 3.0, shaping up
right under our noses and
changing all kinds of realities with
almost the same kind of 'secrecy'
that goes on in a mixture of flour,
water and yeast..... but, wait,
that's a biblical image too, is it
not?
