Finding
Balance
“The
internet is the stained-glass picture of the 21st century.”
Diana
Butler Bass
While
stained glass windows in churches may be going the way of the dinosaur, this is
still a provocative thought. Can you imagine what an internet based stained-glass
window would look like—especially if it were designed right now. It would have a
scowling Trump in the center with a bevy of henchmen surrounding him, along
with scrolls featuring a few nasty tweets and misleading statements, calligraphed
in multiple languages, of course. In the four corners, a wildfire, street
protests, rising waters, and an ocean full of plastic trash. I guess Jeff Bezos
and Elon Musk would stand among the saints, and some space would have to be
dedicated to a sleek Tesla electric car. I think it might look something like
the scene of purgatory in Paradise Lost.
Let’s
just not go there—too depressing. There are some wonderful things taking place
on the internet. How would we get through this pandemic without Zoom and Facetime
and Messenger—we old folks who are in protective isolation would feel even more
disconnected. Some of us get our up-lift from virtual church and from podcasts
by people like Diana Butler Bass. We see photos of our grandchildren and
great-nieces and nephews and it’s almost like watching them grow up. We learn how to do all sorts of things on YouTube. And the recipes--oh, my goodness, the recipes! The
internet, for all its imperfections, keeps us connected to one another, so I’m
not saying we should get rid of it.
It is
concerning how much trouble gets ginned up on it, though, isn’t it? All the
conspiracy theory sites, even though they are completely outrageous, can be pitfalls
for people who are not emotionally well-wrapped. Most of the mass murderers in
the last ten years have published their insane manifestos online and declared
their allegiance to terror groups of all stripes. We seem to have become immune
to the monstrous effect of this.
I
prefer to find my spiritual stained-glass window out in nature. Watching the
breeze move the trees in these waning days of summer is soothing. It calms the
soul. And the half-moon lowering in a morning sky reminds us that some things
do not change, and that not everything is chaos and rage. We can find comfort
in that. Here’s my recommendation: keep your internet time to a minimum and
your nature time to a maximum. That one practice alone will restore a world of
balance, I promise.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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