Filed under: John O'Donohue | Tags: Celtic Christianity, christian spirituality, Christianity, contemplative prayer, Easter, Holy Week, John O'Donohue, Liminal Space, Mysticism, Nature, spirituality, Threshold, To Bless the Space Between Us
April seems like the absolute best time of the year to explore the idea of “threshold”. Outside we find nature on the brink of spring, an ancient ritual of new beginning. Far from coincidence we also find ourselves on the cusp of Holy Week, and the celebration of Easter– reminding ourselves of the spiritual elements of suffering, death, and resurrection. Indeed, it is a profound season and it brings definition to our own interior journey. It is an excellent reminder for me to slow down, pay attention, and notice God’s workings. John O’Donohue summarizes it well:
Like spring secretly at work within the heart of winter, below the surface of our lives huge changes are in fermentation. We never suspect a thing. Then when the grip of some long-enduring winter mentality begins to loosen, we find ourselves vulnerable to a flourish of possibility and we are suddenly negotiating the challenge of a threshold.
At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it? A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms, and atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At this threshold a great complexity of emotion comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossings were always clothed in ritual. It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds; to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross.
To Bless the Space Between Us (New York: Double Day Publishing) 48.
Filed under: John O'Donohue, Uncategorized | Tags: Anam Cara, christian spirituality, Christianity, contemplative prayer, Facebook, Facebook in Real Life, Facebook in Reality, God, John O'Donohue, spirituality
Last November, I spontaneously and abruptly deleted my Facebook account. I had become quite obsessed, checking the news feed and looking for recent comments several times a day. At times, I even noticed that I would pull myself out of real live human conversations to see what was going on in my cyberworld. So with the click of a button, I vanished.
In some ways, I think it became my second life. It was this place where I was in almost total control of the image that I was projecting to the world. I only needed to post the pictures of myself that were exciting, adventurous, and flattering. And my status updates were usually spiritual/intellectual (“Ben is reading his latest crush Dorothy Day”), for bragging (“Ben is off to San Francisco for a week!”), or for shock (“Ben is protesting the RNC”). I could take my time with my commenting and make myself seem insightful and wise. I wouldn’t comment too often though, since I didn’t want people to think I was on Facebook all the time. I had a “real” life of course. But did I?
In his book, Anam Cara, John O’Donohue says that technology and media “pretend to provide a world that is internetted, but in reality, all they deliver is a simulated world of shadows. Accordingly, they make the human world more anonymous and lonely (17).” Hopefully you can understand that I’m not against technology, media, or even Facebook. But last November I was driven to ask myself some tough questions: why do I need to check my Facebook so often? Am I lonely? Is it okay to be lonely? Why would I be lonely? All of these questions turned out to be incredibly spiritually formative, and I think I’ve learned a lot about myself in the past few months… things that I would have totally missed had I been checking for comments on my most recently posted photographs.
Nevertheless, I’m considering a return to cyberworld, via Facebook. There are certain people with whom I can only communicate with through this account. Its also a great way to share photos with family and friends who live far away. At least that’s what I’m telling myself. So here are some guidelines for “online networking websites”: be brief, be present, be intentional, don’t spy, don’t try to be a celebrity or guru, be sure to make the real life with real people the priority. I’m hoping it will simply be the means to relational connection, rather than the end all. We’ll see how it works.
Now for some laughs, check out this hilarious video highlighting some of the ironies and snafus of Facebook:
