It’s October…possibly my favorite month of the whole lovely year. It’s a cool day, but the sun just came out and I glimpse blue out my window. It’s one of those rare but kind of nice, slow days when, for one ailment or another, you really don’t feel up to doing much at all…and, coincidentally, don’t have much to do.
I realize I haven’t been doing too much blogging over the past several months…obviously I’m not the most disciplined writer…but, not long ago, a reminder from my grandmother about how much she enjoys my posts hinted to me that I ought to make a little more concentrated effort to keep this up.
Sometimes I wonder exactly why I blog. It’s easy for intentions and reasons to change with time–and especially as a young woman, for there to be about twenty of them all tangled together like spaghetti noodles, swimming in a sauce of emotions. It’s been easy at times to blog out of vanity–adding to the noise, speaking just because I feel like making my voice heard, and believe all these faceless people are listening, like I have something really important to say all the time. It’s also easy in times of loneliness to blog because it makes me feel that, when I see ‘likes’ popping up on my latest post, I’m listened to, agreed with, and valued.
The simple reality is, I don’t really have people hanging on my every word…and it’s probably better that I don’t because I’ve said and written many more useless words than worthwhile ones. And even when the few people who do read what I write out here (other than people I really know, like my grandmother), ‘like’ a post, I’m not really connecting with them in a relationship, the way people were created to. I can just feed off flattery, if you get right down to it. This digital network promises to ‘connect’ me to countless others, but most of the time, that promise proves pretty empty when I follow its siren song looking for companionship and love.
We’re all lonely. But let’s face it, folks…social media isn’t the cure for that loneliness. Rather it is very, scarily, capable of distancing us from real relationships with those right around us…those we might notice if we weren’t absorbed in our screens…and, most importantly, with the God always waiting for our attention.
I believe that a lot of good can come from blogging. But, like any other form of social media, there’s also a lot of danger in it. When you’re spewing your thoughts at a faceless crowd somewhere in digital oblivion, and not people who know you, love you, and keep you real, it’s all too easy to slip from writing to exalt the truth into writing to exalt yourself…from a desire to inspire into a subtle channel for bragging…from a desire to comfort others by sharing your hard times to an excuse to complain…from a desire to be honest into sometimes talking too much about yourself. In a world that says we need to express ourselves in our art, it’s difficult to remember sometimes that true art is supposed be an expression of something far greater than just us–a small expression, never sufficient, of Truth and Beauty Himself.
To say all that more simply, there’s danger when, as I so often have, I let the motive of writing for God’s glory alone get tangled up with many other lesser motives that somehow benefit me. With God, it’s all or nothing…there is no serving two masters, right?
Just a couple of days ago was the anniversary of the death of Venerable Carlo Acutis, who will one day, I’m sure, be the patron of those who do anything with computers. He was a genius when it came to computers…but his spiritual genius outshone the rest of his amazing qualities.
A thought Carlo once wrote in a journal seems to sum up what I’ve been trying to say all this time:
“Sadness is the gaze turned towards oneself,
happiness is the gaze turned towards God.
Conversion is nothing but moving the gaze from the bottom to the top. A simple movement of the eyes is enough.”
What I’m slowly learning, Carlo, with all his talents that far surpass mine, knew already at a younger age. There is no happiness for us in anything except the face of God–and we cannot share our focus with anything else–we must always, in the eye of our soul, through every part of our lives, gaze upon God. Is that not what Heaven will be? If we could glimpse Heaven here, in every moment of our lives, in every word we may right, would we choose to?
It’s always easier to correct the external than the internal. It would be just like me to come to all this and react by never writing anything except about God specifically…but I don’t think the point Carlo is making leads there. That simple movement means that this heart and mind of mine, behind the writing, must always be turned towards God, so that every word is not just a word, or some restless expression of myself, or a plea for empty attention…but an act of love that always knows it is not enough, so will never stop trying to be more. A humble effort to glorify Truth and Beauty…the Eternal Word…in whose image and likeness we were made…without Whom nothing was made.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m not sitting here writing this to impress you–not anymore. I refuse to write so you can know all about me, to be just one more distraction in this all-too-distracting world, just one more voice in the cacophony. (As an old Switchfoot song begs the listener, ‘If we’re adding to the noise, turn off this song!’) I’m not writing it to make myself feel better about what I have by bragging, thinking someone somewhere must wish they had my life. I’m no longer writing to make myself feel less alone–because, after all, I know I’m very loved; plus, we all need to feel lonely sometimes to find the only One who can fill our deepest longings.
So I’m making two commitments for this blog, here and now–I’m going to write with a little more discipline, and do it with purer motives. When I sit down to write with something true to say, I’ll pray to say it humbly and well, to serve the truth rather than use it. When I come with a joy I want to express, I’ll try to draw your mind to the Giver instead of just the gift. When I come with a lonely ache in my throat, I’ll remind myself of those who really love me…like my grandmother…and also about who you might be, and the loneliness and struggles you might have, that I’m not capable of fixing. And I’ll pray you find real companionship in the Faithful Friend who is always at your side. Who dwells, not in the Internet, not in the world’s noise, but in our souls. In quiet, and solitude, and the heart that is humble enough to realize it needs Him more than anything, and Him alone.
Ut Cum Electis Videamus 