A VACATION FROM FACEBOOK:

  SOME SPIRITUAL PROPHYLAXIS

 Summary: “While Eeyore frets ...
... and Piglet hesitates
... and Rabbit calculates
... and Owl pontificates
...Pooh just is.”
-- Benjamin Hoff, the Tao of Pooh
Undertaking the spiritual prophylaxis of temporarily deactivating a Facebook account represents an effort to try to reconnect with the Divine Tao of a universe that has a kind of order to it which passeth all understanding.  Retreating from the digital noise of Facebook offers a kind of Benedictine/Cistercian vehicle for reconnecting, for getting away from so much of the sadness I detect in Facebook, the sadness so deep that no tears will come.  Among the fretting, the hesitating, the calculating, and the pontificating, perhaps this is an opportunity just to be.

By: Paul S. Marchand

I deactivated my Facebook account today, hopefully as a spiritual prophylaxis.  I have not decided when to reactivate it, if ever.  Sometimes, the temptation to engage in sterile, often testy exchanges on Facebook becomes a positive danger as we find ourselves drawn into what Buddhist thought sometimes calls the Vortex of Becoming, a place where sometimes the sadness is so deep that no tears will come.

Sadly, Facebook tends to facilitate a conversational culture in which thought takes a backseat to visceral reaction, and in which fact gives way to unconsidered opinion.  Of course, Facebook does have its upsides; I find it possible to be in touch with old friends with whom I had fallen out of touch, or to make rich and fruitful new friendships with people I have never actually met.

Nonetheless, there are times when the back-and-forth on Facebook reminds me how useful it is sometimes just to be.  My mind goes back to a marvelous quotation from Benjamin Hoff’s the Tao of Pooh: ““While Eeyore frets ... and Piglet hesitates ... and Rabbit calculates ... and Owl pontificates ...Pooh just is.”  Sometimes it is important that we just are.  At the risk of seeming to traffic in heresy, it seems to me that the universe has a Tao, a way of being, in balance with God’s divine economy, a kind of order to it which passeth all understanding.

Yet, watching --- and sometimes being drawn deeply myself --- into the squabbling of my Facebook friends, gleefully shredding the Tao of the universe, I can’t help but feel a certain sense of appeal in the Benedictine and Cistercian ideal of the spiritual retreat.  In the face of Facebook noise, I find myself hauntingly attracted to the more ancient Christian ideal of holy silence.

It may very well be a good thing in this season of Pentecost to attend silently upon what the Holy Spirit may be trying to impart to us, to make a more meaningful effort to be in better harmony with the Divine Tao.  So, I’ve turned off Facebook for a while.  At some point I will no doubt return, but when I do, hopefully I will be in a better position to confine the temptations of Facebook in carefully locked little box, to be opened only with care and under very careful conditions.

 "Acquire a peaceful spirit, and around you thousands will be saved." -St. Seraphim Sarovskiy

Ideally, as some fret and others hesitate and others calculate and others pontificate, I can just be.  Lord, in your mercy, hear my prayer.

-xxx-

Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and practices in Cathedral City, California.  The views contained herein are his own, and are not intended as, and should not be construed as, legal advice.