Technology and the Eremitical Life: the Positive Side of Things

Well, I listened to some of the podcast I did a couple of weeks ago. (Fortunately a friend listened, said it was great and gave me a bit of courage to go ahead myself!) One of the questions Sisters Julie and Maxine posed was whether and how technology changed eremitical life. It was not a question I had thought much about, and not one I answered very well, but it is an important question and I want to give it another shot! Some readers of this blog have posed related questions, sometimes in positive terms, and more often in cynical ways because they doubt that technology can add much at all to a genuine eremitical vocation. After all, how can one observe stricter separation from the world and yet have and use a computer with internet access --- much less have a blog? Doesn't technology detract from authentic eremitical life? How could it not?

Fortunately, the answer I gave did mention the need for discipline in the use of technology and it also spoke of accessibility. These are crucial, of course, and I should have mentioned them, no doubt, but as I thought about what I was struggling towards in my answer (because it was a pretty incoherent and definitely a matter of muddling towards something!) I realized that one of the biggest, and certainly most positive differences for hermits is the way technology stresses and allows a sense of the hermit's place in the Church and world --- not just for the hermit herself, but for the Church and world as well. The presence of a computer, for instance, serves to symbolize the interconnectedness and legitimate interdependence of hermit/hermitage and church and world.

We often hear about hermits and contemplatives more generally "living at the heart of the church." One has a sense of this because to the degree one is in union with God one feels united to all that is precious to him as well. One learns in prayer that one really is part of a mystical body and related to all others within that body --- and outside it as well. This is the central truth of one's solitude --- that one is related to God and to all of God's creation in a way one might not be aware of otherwise. One is related in and through God, and related through time and space thusly. It is this experience of relatedness which which is primary for the hermit. Other experiences of relatedness remain important nonetheless.

And here is one place technology has really affected eremitical life. The hermit must find ways to relate to the Church and World while maintaining her solitude intact. Technology allows this. More, it becomes a symbol of the fact that the hermit does indeed live at the heart of the Church and serves both the Church and the world by maintaining the integrity of her eremitical life --- a solitary life with two poles or dimensions, the first that of separation and the second that of community. Like a cyberskete or virtual laura of diocesan hermits where hermits from around the world are linked to one another by electronic pathways, so too does the computer link the hermit with the world around her. Because the linkage is immediate, the sense of connection adds to the primary sense of relatedness in God. Additionally, for me anyway, there is an increased and more concrete sense that my life serves as a kind of leaven (good I hope!) in all of this.

Of course being connected in this way shapes my prayer and my heart in general. It is pretty much impossible to be accessible to and interact with others, answer questions, accept prayer requests, post reflections which are meant to be nourishing or helpful to others without finding that one grows in compassion at the same time. And one returns to the solitude of the cell affected by who one has met, and who one was for those people. The eremitical life is, as I said, a life lived alone with God for others. It is possible to lose sight of this "for others" dimension of things (we see this with self-identified hermits (or mystics) from time to time where being a hermit (or mystic) becomes a label for nothing more than glorified navel-gazing or a kind of pseudo spiritual-masturbation). But this is a danger for all hermits and the primary sense of being related to others in God must be tested and concretized in limited contact with actual people and real lives. Otherwise the observation that we are a contemplative presence at the heart of the Church, true though it is generally, can serve specifically as nothing more than a pious platitude which excuses selfishness and even some degree of misanthropy.

The idea that I can spend hours a day in complete solitude and then step into the next room where pressing a single key connects me to the world around me in a concrete and immediate way is still astounding. The notion that I am accessible to others in ways which are fruitful for them and for me (as well as for the eremitical vocation more generally) is equally astounding. But anchorites have always had windows open to both the altar and to the public space outside their anchorhold. In the 21st century technology (especially the computer and internet), like the windows of the anchorite's anchorhold does symbolize the truth of a life lived in the heart of the Church and linked to the whole world by God first of all, and then in other ways, including electronically.

It is certainly possible to speak favorably of technology -- as I have done here --- but there are significant caveats as well and I will need to say more about these. For instance, media changes us, whether we are careful with it or not; it changes our nervous systems, the way we process information, the degree to which we can truly listen or accept (or resist) silence and solitude. This was Marshall McLuhan's message and it is echoed, sharpened, and expanded on by Nicholas Carr in The Shallows, What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. Sherry Turkle's work is also appropriate here with important books like The Second Self and Alone Together, Why we Expect More from Technology and Less from One Another.  Moreover, though I have spoken about the positive side of technology for the hermit, I am including a video of a talk on Thomas Merton's views of technology and their destructive effects on culture and humanity in case it is of some interest to you. It is done by Father Ezekiel Lotz.



P.S., one friend reminded me I did not mention the way technology allows the hermit to work from their hermitage in this post. She is correct, and it is a good point. I admit my mind here was on the answer I was searching for during the podcast when I hared off on the idea of accessibility, so perhaps I can say more about the more functional ways technology has affected the eremitical life in another post.