Dear Friends,
I heard someone say recently that she constructs her
identity online and that she didn’t need or want other interactions to
interfere. She wanted to design herself as she walked into the future. I doubt
this young woman is the only one who seeks and spends what she terms life
giving time on the internet. She’s probably not the only one to search for her
identity online.
It’s true that we all create ourselves in some part, by
discipline, practice, working our way through new ways of dressing, acting, thinking
speaking.
But to limit to oneself the creation of oneself online is
insular, at the very least. The old adage was “It takes a village to raise a
child.” We can also say “It takes a community to shape a person.”
In a community, we rub against people who have been shaped
by the beliefs of and interactions with people. Within a community, we’re
exposed to sight, sound, smell, texture, arguments, whispered words of love,
laughter. We hear the stories of our family members, their life-giving or
destructive relationships. Some things community offers are narrow, bigoted,
dead wrong. Still, in the history of civilization, for better or for worse,
people have lived, survived, thrived in community.
We hear people’s stories of struggle to be with God. Members
of the community tell of blessings received, shared or rejected. We learn what
it means to lose oneself for the sake of the other, rather than be absorbed in
ourselves, incessantly monitoring whether others like us or don’t like us. In a
community, if we recognize it only in retrospect, we develop our capacity to
grow our capacity for life and for the infinite.
According to Harvard ethicist Michael Sandel, “what it means
to be human is in persistent negotiation with what we have been given.” It takes
time to recognize and name what we have been given, and evaluate it. Sitting
before the computer, we may think we have total control of our lives. In fact,
we need to rein whatever control we think we have in cyberspace.
I am not interested in weaning people away from the valuable
contributions that computers make to life including some of our psychological
functions. But machines leave little room for ambiguity, chaos, God’s kindom.
In cyberspace, what room is there for love, forgiveness, reconciliation?
Theologian Ilia Delio reminds us that “when God disappears from us, we
disappear to ourselves.” What a loss!
The person who is incontrovertibly caught up in desiring to
shape his/her own live through cyberspace – that is apart from the community –
is like the prodigal son, who says to his father, ”I don’t value my
relationship with you. Give me my inheritance and let me go.” Thank God he has
the sense, acknowledged the pull to return. The father welcomes him
unconditionally. The second son does not. He refuses to be reconciled. Perhaps
staying behind – not exploring the possibilities of his own cyberspace – has
hardened the second son against forgiveness as a true option for him. Both sons
have lost something. Homes that are broken by the choices of family members can
be fixed, but not without effort and not without reaching out to God. Reigniting
love is the work of everyone. It takes community.
~ Sister Joan Sobala
