Maintaining Spiritual Imagination in an Age of Passivity

"As if there weren't enough ways to avoid what’s going on in our minds, e-mail and social media are now routed to our mobiles to distract us all day long. As convenient as this may be, this hyper-connectedness means that now even the slightest feeling of boredom or restlessness is a trigger to get online and keep busy."

Headspace,
Huffington Post

Today I ordered my very first smartphone so I will have the capability of doing something that many people have requested of me: share short videos with teaching points here on Facebook. I need the video capacity of the phone so I can take it outdoors and record whenever I need to do so. Hopefully, this will help in gaining clients for my Spiritual Direction business. Also, those of you who have not met me face to face will be able to gain more of a sense of who-I-am than mere words on a screen ever could.
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However, I make this move with quite a bit of trepidation. Part of my daily spiritual practice involves remaining present in each moment to whatever is occurring, even if that experience of "now" seems boring and without meaning. As monks and contemplatives throughout the ages have always known, such boredom is the very fuel needed to activate the SPIRITUAL IMAGINATION as a means to finding sacredness in situations that appear meaningless and spiritually dry.

While it is easy to leave my wifi-connected I Pad at home when I'm working nights at my janitorial accounts in town, the phone will generally remain with me. This means that the temptation to check email, Facebook and Instagram will be greatly intensified. For years, I've noticed with dismay that many of my friends engage in the habit of constantly checking their phones, no matter where they are. One spiritual direction client even brought his phone into our face-to-face sessions and kept checking his messages while we were talking. I finally informed him I would only continue with the counseling on the condition that he LEAVE his phone in the car.

Now I will no longer be able to use the "leave the device at home" strategy in attempting to faithfully preserve my regimen of spiritual discipline. I pray for the capacity to activate new reserves of INNER discipline instead.

Here is a link to the article quoted above:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/03/meditation-in-action-technology-and-mindfulness_n_3360037.html
Photo: Wild Currant bush and rock formations; Vedauwoo Recreation Area, Medicine Bow National Forest, WY, September 28, 2015

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I am available for one-on-one spiritual direction / mentoring via phone or Skype. You can contact me at [email protected] if you are interested. The rate is $65 per hour-long session. You might also want to check out my Spiritual Direction with Stephen Hatch Facebook page.

Enlargements of many of my photos are available.  Here is the link:

http://www.stephenhatchphotography.com/#!mounting-prices/cpr6