Technology and Lent

Many of my friends give up Facebook and/or the internet for Lent. I can understand this. What if for every time I skimmed my news feed I was praying or reading scripture? Well, I use my many devices to aid me in prayer and study. I was gifted a lovely Nook Color and I have loaded it with ebooks including a Bible, and some prayer resources.

I recently discovered a plan online for reading the Church Fathers for Lent at http://www.churchyear.net/lentfathers.html . This site has the reading in several PDF forms including one that has the reading schedule and the complete readings. The dates listed are for 2010, but one can easily adjust. I downloaded the full text and converted it to an ebook at Online epub converter, a free conversion site that I have found to be safe and easy. I loaded the text on my Nook and now I can easily keep this part of my discipline wherever I go.

In this case, technology is an aid to my discipline of study. This is not always the case. I must confess that I most often use the internet as a distraction. I do use it to study, and to say the Daily Office, but I am frequently playing games or wandering down a twisted path of links and comments. While I use social media I don't feel like I use it as well as I could. I started this blog years ago, and have but a few posts. Any blog is about shameless self promotion, but most blogs also have some higher purpose. I certainly intended to use this blog as a way to stimulate some thinking about things that are important to me and my journey with Christ. As a priest I have indeed found that the personal becomes universal if we but only share with others. The sermons wherein I preach what I need to hear resonate more with others than when I am preaching about what I think I know. So as I turn inward during Lent, I pledge to make use of the technology available to me to also turn outward. I will better use this blog and social media to share my journey, believing that others might be touched by the reflections of a fellow pilgrim.

So brothers and sisters, do not be like those wire-heads who speak into their tooths of blue to seem important, or like the gamers who ignore the body for the virtual, or like the posters who vent behind anonymous comments. Seek what is good. Proclaim the good news from the rooftops, the laptops, and the smartphones. Do not judge those hypnotized by the lighted screen, but instead let the light of God shine in your hearts.

Have a blessed Lent. Perhaps you might want to do your own search of the internet for helps during Lent. Share with others how you use technology to draw closer to God. For starters, check out what The Rev. Scott Gunn has to say over at Seven Whole Days .

The Dude Abides.