Googly over Google

In the Globe and Mail this morning columnist Margaret Wente writes about the way Google is turning our minds to mush. She concedes that the concept is not original -- it is cribbed from an article in the latest Atlantic Monthly magazine called Is Google Making Us Stupid? Catchy. Wanna read it? Just Google it.

Both articles suggest that we (author's included) are losing our ability to focus because of the internet. Bright, educated people have developed the attention span of gnats because they can flit around from one place to another online, grabbing information in moments that once required days to research. Deep reading with its rich connections and interconnections has been replaced by skimming. The same folk can text message and email and phone at just about any time of the day or night. One of my daughters figures she regularly receives a hundred texts a day (once 180) and, of course, responds. She sleeps with her cell phone by her side.

The internet and Google are great for many reasons, and so are cell phones. Remember I mentioned recognizing the landscape in the movie 3:10 to Yuma starring Russell Crowe? I Googled the film and, sure enough, it's desert location was the Ghost Ranch centre in New Mexico which I visited last November. The thing is, the great spiritual benefit of visiting Ghost Ranch and its remote retreat house called Casa del Sol was that I was away from phones and internet and information, information, information. I don't need more bits and pieces of info. I need wisdom. I need focussed, spacious time with God, which I got in that setting. When I was there I could feel my mind clearing and my desire for God deepening.

I continue to have "holy moments" as I mentally travel back to that setting. When my son, Isaac, and others have walked the 800 kilometres of the Camino pilgrimage in Spain they come back different people. As Isaac has said, it is important to see the world for a while at six kilometres an hour and with few distractions.

It's not lost on me that I'm saying all this to readers who are using the internet to access my blog. I tend to keep entries short so that they don't require a lot of reading. Yet I know you're a bright bunch. After all, you're reading my blog.

We will all continue to Google our world. Still,I do believe it is essential to create the psychological and spiritual space for the wisdom which is God's gift to us.

If Jesus took time apart in reflection and contemplation its probably a good idea. Yes?