Opening Shots

Here are some of my notes towards the opening of the presentation -- in some ways setting out the thesis for the session.

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Spirituality is like breathing -- all human beings have to figure out what they really desire and what they can do about it. My definition of spirituality for the talk:

The individual pilgrimage responding to our deepest God given desires. This is difficult journey of integration and transformation to become our true selves doing our true work according to God’s loving intention for us. 

 Twenty-first Century digital communication technology can be God’s gift to us, and often is. But only if we have control of it, as opposed to it having control of us. The effects of losing that control is becoming more insecure, fearful, socially and intellectually isolated, passive and distracted. We will concentrate on how we address these effects in order to continue to grow as ministers and in the kind of help needed by those we minister to.

I am not sharing the problems I have solved, or those parts of my life where I think I have made the most progress, or have it together. I am sharing my challenges and sometime failures, and the journey I am on because of them.

This presentation does not address addictive disorders connected with the internet -- when internet use significantly interferes with normal life. We are addressing how it can interfere with our spiritual life and the spiritual lives of others. (In some cases we are concerned with the prevention of such disorders and addressing internet use with young people is a special area of concern. )

I am not intending to offer some quick palliative measures for dealing with stuff, nor am I here as a technological Jeremiah to say that with the Internet we are all doomed. We will be looking at real problems, with a response that does more than slap a band-aid on the wound.