Back online ...

I tried to touch them to make sure they weren't holograms or anything ...

This is probably the longest time I've been offline in years.  No Internet, no email - nothing.  I caught the news on network TV and PBS - no print news, no radio.  Aside from a bit of television I was probably as unconnected as a Carthusian.  I didn't even follow coverage on Francis in Africa on EWTN.

It was an excellent break.

I got the laptop back today.  I surfed a couple of blogs and Catholic social media portals and realized I didn't miss much.  Just a quick skim at Pewsitters was enough to jolt me into a fresh sense of recognition that the site is corrupted by detraction simply in and through their headline copy.  New Advent struck me as a sort of scolding school for bad Catholics ... the same old, same old Catholic authorities criticizing 'faux' whatever.  Writing faux religious rules in the ethernet.  It reminds me of the Scripture: For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world ... and online-evangelists.

The Internet can be oppressive - you think you're in control, but these weird people infect your interior life with bits of malware.  People need to unplug from time to time.  A friend asked if my computer was possessed - in a sense it was - by trojans and malware.   Our brains pick up crap like that as well - our faith gets corrupted - we pick up these negative bits and criticisms, calumnies and detraction, all sorts of filth and we are influenced by all of it - whether we think so or not.

I jokingly emailed my friend, writing:  I just skimmed through blog links - same old same old. I talked to real living people at Best Buy and it was so weird. I tried to touch them to make sure they weren't holograms or anything - but they backed away. I've been sequestered for far too long - I have been living online. The wonderful thing I discovered is that the 'real' people I meet - they do not talk or act like the people online say they do. They are really pretty nice - they don't scream at me or tell me mean things or anything like that.

I may not return next time. I may follow one of them home and ask if they'll adopt me.  You can't do that with online 'friends and followers' - they're not real - they are just online.  When I was offline - no one was there.  No one.