Using Internet Wisely: Some Distinctions Between Hiddenness and Privacy

[[Sister Laurel, I have been watching videos by [an online Christian hermit] and reading your blog for some time. You have such different approaches to eremitical life. I have been interested in the distinctions. One of these is about the hiddenness of the hermit life. Recently, [this hermit] put up several posts while running errands in B____, and today she put up one showing herself in a medical waiting room dressed in scrubs as she waited for an MRI. What has me feeling confused and often uncomfortable is how she complains that [despite your supposed hiddenness], you use the title Sister and wear a habit, while she puts up videos of herself shopping, going to the doctor, lying in bed in pain, and so forth, while identifying herself as a hermit to those watching such videos. The videos are becoming more frequent, and it seems like everything, even family fights and details of her physical and emotional condition, is fair game. It's as though everything she does has to be video'd for her viewers while boundaries are forgotten. Yet she goes after you for using her name and not being anonymous yourself. How can any of this be considered consistent with eremitical hiddenness?]]

Thanks for your questions. Let me talk about eremitical hiddenness and also the value of privacy. I have no intention of speaking about this specific hermit's praxis because she no longer presents herself as a Catholic Hermit, something I very much appreciate.  Your comments still raise the more general question of eremitical hiddenness and possible inconsistency, and would do so no matter the hermit involved if they have an online presence. My own blog does that, for instance. What you say about the increasing frequency of videos, along with their content, could also raise the question of an incipient or more developed failure to respect appropriate boundaries. What is true, of course, is that every hermit must answer such questions when they decide to post anything online, and they must continue to raise these questions over time. It seems to me that this is particularly true if they are also publicly critical of another hermit's supposed "lack of hiddenness". Bearing that in mind, let me move on to these more general topics.

Anyone posting online will find that the internet encourages a dissolution of our sense of privacy and of appropriate boundaries. This can be gradual or not. The hermits I know mostly have internet, and we use it to communicate in a variety of ways, to come together in a virtual laura over huge geographical and temporal distances, to post about this vocation, to sell what we make, make doctor's appointments, and things like that. My sense is we each take care with our use of such media. Additionally, some of us have been called upon to do interviews for journalists, authors, radio broadcasters (or podcasters), and the like, but in doing these, there always remains a significant caution that honesty and transparency do not transgress appropriate boundaries. 

Journalists give us the draft of what they want to publish, and we go over these to be sure we are comfortable with everything in the interview, article, book chapter, or whatever. There is no sense ever that this media piece is going to transgress upon our essential hiddenness or the personal boundaries most people have no right or need to see beyond. We don't do the interview, or give permission for its publication, etc., if we cannot be certain of these limits. (Granted, this doesn't prevent all errors, but it does tend to work for boundary issues.) But on the internet, people post or write and put up pictures and videos of themselves that reveal far more of themselves than they realize. It takes real care to use media appropriately while ensuring the hiddenness or privacy necessary to the hiddenness of an eremitic life.

Some things never show up in the interviews or articles I do. While I do indeed mention the chronic illness and disability that are part of my own call to eremitical life, the details of those realities,  especially on a day-to-day basis, are private. Not only are they generally unhelpful to folks reading this blog, but they cross boundaries, both my own and those of my readers, which are better maintained intact. In some ways, "putting it all out there" is uncharitable and can lack respect, both for myself and for the reader. Similarly, some will know I have a sister, a niece, and may even know their first names, but that is ordinarily the limit of things. I once asked for prayer for my sister due to some surgery she was having. I have posted on the occasion of the anniversary of my brother's death. But the ins and outs, ups and downs of relationships (which are pretty much the same as anyone else's) is simply not helpful to anyone reading this blog, and not my right to post about. But let me be especially clear, this kind of thing is not about the hiddenness of my life. It is about the right that my family and I both have to privacy despite the public nature of my vocation.

Hiddenness has to do with the intimacies of my (or any hermit's) life with God, the existential solitude that my life possesses and seeks as an essential dimension of an authentically human life. And, paradoxically, I am called to witness to this hiddenness. Imagine that! In my life, every day of my life, I live a communion or union with God that no one else can enter, see, touch, or know. They can know all of this themselves in regard to their own relationship with God, yes, but they cannot enter, see, touch, or know my own solitude with God. And yet, at the same time, I am called to witness to this inviolable, ineffable, and sacred reality with my life. Sometimes, because I write about the nature of c 603 eremitic life, I am also called to write what I can about this relationship, and yet, a good deal of it (when I can find the words for it) will remain entirely private except to spiritual directors, my bishop and/or confessor, and those very rare (and very good) friends with whom I share this vocation.

Here is where titles and habits can be helpful. They are an outer sign of this inner reality. They immediately signal something existing that otherwise people will not have a way into. Of course, my own qualities and characteristics as a person also reveal the presence and nature of my relationship with God (and are more important in doing so than any habit!), but the all-consuming focus of my life and the total nature of my commitment can be indicated by title and habit. These are signals to an intimacy with God every person is invited to experience and explore for themselves, and which I have said yes to in public vows and consecration. They are also things I have adopted with the permission of the Church as part of an ecclesial vocation. I don't usually know why others wear habits, or, often the more neuralgic question, why many do not, though I understand and respect the decisions made by those I do know. In terms of my own religious life, however, the habit serves as a signal to something hidden and holy --- a journey which differs in some ways from that of most people and is undertaken on their behalf. At the same time, though it is helpful to me, it is less about me than it is about signaling the potential within each one of us, especially within a faith community, to make the kind of journey I have been writing about lately, and that I have mentioned indirectly through the years in terms of "inner work". Today, because they are less common, habits invite questions, and questions invite witness and encouragement of others regarding the journey they, too, are called to make in their own way.

In terms of your questions, what I find fascinating is how apparently easy it is for someone to mistake anonymity for hiddenness or even for privacy. What adds to that fascination is my awareness of how, on the other hand, it is possible to write publicly and talk about the inner journey hermits are called to make, to wear a habit, use the title Sister (or Brother), and maintain the hiddenness of the vocation and the privacy necessary for self-respect and the respect of others. There are paradoxes here that I think are important, and hermits certainly need to be aware of these. Sometimes writing or filming something in the name of sharing, openness, or transparency erodes essential boundaries and potentially involves the reader or viewer in a form of voyeurism. Here is one of the places where the internet's tendency to count visitors coming to the site can be deceptive or misleading. It doesn't always indicate one's writing, for instance, is edifying or even interesting. Hermits need to ask themselves if they are getting the readership (or viewership) they are (especially when that readership spikes upward or drops off precipitously), not because what they write is truly of interest or edifying to others, but because it is fascinating like a train wreck, car crash, or streaker in a park full of people is fascinating.

The potential for misuse of media and the subtle,  even surreptitious, and always surprising ways the use of media can lead to the gradual or even more immediate transgression or erosion of appropriate boundaries for the writer or videographer and reader or viewer alike is important. This is another place where external solitude and silence help protect existential solitude, and where respect for oneself flows over into respect for others as well. That said, let me be clear that I believe videos, vlogs, and blogs can be used appropriately, and that certainly includes those done by hermits. I have posted examples of that several times, including hermits, monks, and cloistered nuns.  Even so, the use of media must be undertaken with caution and careful discernment. 

I would like to leave readers with the observation that privacy and hiddenness, like external and existential solitude, while related, are not the same things. Hermits' hiddenness has to do with their existential solitude and their journey to God and Self. Privacy helps ensure that the journey to the depths of oneself in existential solitude can be, and is, undertaken with focus and integrity. What one reveals publicly is a matter of judgment and respect for oneself, one's vocation, and one's readers or viewers. When we conflate such terms, we tend to make sure that the vocation and the inner journey to which it witnesses are misunderstood. That does not serve God, the Church, or anyone else well, and it contributes to the stereotypes and misapprehensions that plague the word "hermit".