Praying Before Blogging
September 26, 2010
I wonder how many of us pray before we enter the blogosphere. Before we sit down and write out comments or write a post, do we ask the Holy Spirit to guide us? My Spiritual Director told me to begin praying before I write and I still have to remind myself to do it. I often times forget until after the fact. I wonder why it is so difficult to ask God to be a part of this community.
I have a feeling that if more of us pray before we write and comment, the more kind the blogosphere will be.
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Poignant post. And in addition to asking for guidance, if we were just a little more conscious of God before blogging and commenting, we’d have a more open and productive online experience.
I know this is outside your faith tradition but thought I would share: Imam al-Bukhari, the author of Sahih al-Bukhari, considered by the majority of Muslims to be one of Islam’s most reliable religious works, would pray before sitting down to compile his work, which took him many years. Your post reminded me of that sense of humility.
Thanks,
Thank you for this post – this reminder. How can we not pray before we blog and before we comment? Well, I know that I do not stop to do so nearly often enough.
Your post is yet another reminder of the great call to be in community and to understand blogging as form of community. The allure for individualism, the sound of one’s own voice – at least for me, even if I feel uncomfortable admitting that – is so strong. “But hey,” is how it starts out, “this is what *I* think…”
The invitation to prayer is the invitation to community. Thus it is the invitation to literally re-member the Body of Christ.
Touche.
And prayer particularly for those we oppose (something I’ve learned in confession, though don’t always remember to use) is especially effective in purifying a point of view and its expression.
Like.
Totally agree, also with brettsalkeld’s comments.
Thank you for the reminder.
CS Lewis had a prayer particularly for apologists which (even if he didn’t pray it all the time) seems fairly poignant:
From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories that I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.
Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,
O thou fair silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle’s eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.
P.S. Does this mean RCM is back to blogging for VN? If so, it is a welcome development.
Fran, I love what you point out about community. Prayer makes us aware that we are in communion with each other, whether we like it or not :)
And, thank you, Michael for the welcome. Yes, I am back by God’s grace.
In the context of the blogosphere. Those prayers would hopefully be for one’s enemies.
Actually, Adam, I think the most appropriate place to start is worrying about oneself before worrying about another.
Thanks for the reminder, RCM. I could stand to remember that myself.