It's Not in The Cloud
Participation is the way to build community and spirituality
The fact is that relationships are the alchemy of life. They turn the dross of dailiness into gold. They make human community real. They provide what we need and wait in turn for us to give back. - Sister Joan Chittister
Every day, it seems like another “friend” is posting on social media platforms that they are signing off or migrating to another platform that feels more friendly. While I realize that some are doing so out of anger at the lack of oversight and the fear of their feeds becoming nothing more than vitriolic spewing, I suspect there’s also a growing sense that social media is doing the exact opposite of what it claims to do: it’s disconnecting us.
I’ll be frank: social media has never been my thing. It’s useful for connecting to people you haven’t seen in 30 years (and still haven’t seen!), or who you met once while traveling, and as a marketing tool (which is it’s true purpose). Nonetheless, I have spent an inordinate amount of time in recent months engaging with it as a guest on podcasts, posting those podcasts on my social media, hosting virtual events, responding to emails, and writing and promoting this newsletter online. Paradoxically, I found myself feeling increasingly – and frustratingly - less connected.
While there are benefits of using social media, such as conversations with people I would never have the chance to meet, there’s a hollow feeling. Because of algorithms that I have no control over, my feeds are filled with advertising, and each post receives less and less engagement. The social media machine demands an endless stream of content, and we are all willingly (or not) providing it, as if our lives depend on it. It feels like being inexorably pulled into a giant, ever-consuming black hole that sucks everything in only for it disappear into the void. And yet, because we humans crave connection, we keep feeding the void while optimistically believing that we are somehow defeating our own dissolution.
I’m not complaining about not getting enough “likes,” though we all know how disheartening that can be. I’m looking at something deeper than that. With everyone competing to connect and “build community” around themselves in the overcrowded Internet, we have created a world that feels more like the night sky: millions of individual stars in a vast universe, desperately blinking at their neighbors light-years away...and getting further away. We are more disconnected than ever.
For those reasons and more, I vacillate between a deep desire to eschew all forms of social media and a desperate need for community, which makes getting off social media feel like cutting the cord that holds you to the spaceship only to drift off into the infinity of space alone.
I suspect that’s a false binary and there’s a spectrum of connectivity and community-ness that I am just beginning to consider. But one thing I have learned is that much of what we mistake for community is really just a bunch of individuals waving at one another from a distance. Real community takes genuine, face-to-face participation. And we have forgotten how to do that.
At a recent rare in-person lunch, a dear friend lamented how difficult it is to be in community.
“It takes so much time and work to maintain all these relationships,” he said, referencing the many different groups to which he belonged. “How am I supposed to get anything done?”
That’s a good question. In the age of constant busyness, right-click “likes” and insta- “friends,” we have forgotten that community is participatory and that it takes time and effort to create and sustain relationships. Community is a verb, not a noun. It’s not as if you create a community once and it never needs maintenance or adaptation. It’s a continual process and sometimes, it’s less than convenient. It certainly doesn’t contribute to the GDP (and might even detract from it), unless you simply view community as “networking.” That’s not community: that’s using connection for self-interest, and, at it’s core, that’s the larger purpose of social media.
We build community when we go through things together. Often. Repeatedly. I mean real-life things, not just posting photos or videos of something you did a few hours/days ago and having that experience “witnessed” by strangers on the Internet and affirmed with an emoji. I am talking about actual conversations, actual events, actual birthday parties and trips and emotional breakdowns and funerals for loved ones.
Building community takes effort and it takes time. You have to participate, the root of which means “shared in.” You have to make the time to call someone, not just send a text. You have to show up at someone’s house, at the party, or when people need you, not just click “like” or send a “Happy Birthday” post when Facebook/Meta reminds you that it’s someone’s special day. These posts are a weak substitute for a real, live birthday call, card or party, but we have conspired with social media to believe that quantity overrides quality when it comes to birthday wishes. The same is true for “likes” and “friends.” More equals, well, more. But less connection.
Every spiritual tradition has emphasized the importance of real community: we cannot do this alone. Furthermore, in times of challenge, we need to become more connected, not less. We need that quality over quantity. Spiritual philosopher, David Spangler, said, “Some people think they are in community, but they are only in proximity. True community requires commitment and openness. It is a willingness to extend yourself to encounter and know the other.”
And that takes more than a click of a finger.
Last week, fueled by polar, deep freeze weather, cabin fever, and the subsequent urgent need to simplify my life, I was cleaning out boxes stored in my attic. In one of the boxes, I discovered several manila envelopes filled with letters. Yes, letters. Decades of handwritten letters sent to me from parents, grandparents, friends, lovers and even people I couldn’t remember anymore. Most were still in their envelopes. Some also contained articles, mementos or photographs.
I spent several hours reading through these letters, and while there was a good deal of nostalgic emotion that came up, the over-riding sense was one of deep appreciation. I found myself so grateful for the time, the openness, the mental attention and the energy people put into writing these letters. I started to remember how exciting it was to receive a letter in the mail. (Remember the way the AOL marketed email? “You’ve got mail!). Holding the envelope, recognizing the handwriting, I felt instantly connected to the person who sent the letter. I even remembered how much attention – and how much joy -- I put into writing a letter to someone else - and decorating the envelope. I valued the opportunity to share myself with another so intimately.
Perhaps we weren’t as productive when we had to take the time to write a letter, put it in an envelope (maybe even decorate the envelope, enclose a photo or article, or choose an appropriate stamp), and drop it off at the post office. We actually took the time to think about the person while writing. Maybe, too, we weren’t as laissez-faire with our words or as trigger-happy with our opinions. Maybe we didn’t see letter-writing as a chore, but an honor: a true opportunity to share ourselves with another and to be seen by the receiver. And then, of course, there was always the possibility of receiving a letter back in return.
I doubt any of us feel this way about writing an email, let alone a text, and certainly not a social media post! It says something about how little we extend ourselves now to build community.
I didn’t throw the box of letters out, by the way. In fact, I put them all carefully in a separate box labeled “Connections.” I don’t want to lose them.
The American Catholic social justice activist, Dorothy Day, once wrote: "The only answer in this life, to the loneliness we are all bound to feel, is community.” This is echoed across spiritual teachings from Buddhism to Indigenous traditions. But to be in community, we actually have to participate - share of ourselves, share in the life of others, and share in building community. We have to be active agents, not just consumers. That goes for all kinds of communities from families to social justice groups to spiritual communities.
Just like in other contemporary “community” contexts, much of our modern spirituality revolves around private practice and virtual community. When we are gathering in Zoom rooms to learn or practice, useful as they are for some things, we aren’t going through anything together. We sign on, do our thing, and sign off. There’s little opportunity for real, open sharing and actual life itself. It’s a still frame, a snapshot.
Likewise, we can watch teachers and teachings on YouTube without ever interacting. It’s a consumer-model of spirituality, not much different than showing up in church on Sunday, mumbling through prayers or lip-syncing hymns, vaguely listening to the sermon, saying a few perfunctory hellos to people you barely know, and grabbing a cookie on your way out the door. It takes minimal effort.
Similarly, when we are only focused on our own meditation practice in private, we aren’t engaging or participating with others, to our detriment. Thich Nhat Hanh taught the importance of spiritual community or sangha when he said, "We practice mindfulness of cooking, cleaning, sweeping, and washing. When we work this way, we touch the ultimate dimension of reality. But we need training to do this, and it helps very much to have a community in which all the members are sharing the same practice. In fact, it is crucial to be with a Sangha or a church where everyone practices together, or dwells mindfully in the Spirit. We need to create such communities for our own benefit.” (Italics mine)
I would propose that spirituality itself requires sharing in community. At least Radical Spirituality does. While we need to do our own individual work, it’s in our communities that the rubber hits the road, and it’s our community that shows us when we are missing the mark. Spirituality is really about how our spiritual practice informs our actual, real-life relationships and vice versa, not just our own internal disconnected sense of “spiritualism.” As Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield has written, “The community is created, not when people come together in the name of religion, but when they come together bringing honesty, respect, and kindness to support an awakening of the sacred.” In other words, it is only through community that the sacred is realized.
That’s the kind of community I crave, and why I am less and less satisfied with superficial community that benefits the social media moguls and advertisers by cynically diminishing and commodifying our deepest human need for connection.
There’s a saying in Hebrew that comes from Deuteronomy, “Lo Bashamayim Hi,” or “It’s not in Heaven.” It’s a reference to the idea that Torah (or spiritual wisdom) isn’t handed down from on high, but comes from human experience, interpretation and participation. Though it’s a stretch from rabbinical law, I’d extend that to include “It’s not in the Cloud.” In other words, spirituality and community are not in virtual reality, but are dependent on us participating in the real world. We are the ones that have to determine what community means and how to actively make community happen.
So, for now, I will be selectively disengaging from social media. You probably won’t find me on Instagram anymore, and on Facebook only rarely for specific reasons. I am not joining BlueSky, and I have never been on Twitter/X or LinkedIn. In spite of PR people pleading with me to start a YouTube channel and a podcast, I won’t do it. At least not right now. I realize that limits my ability to reach people I don’t know, but so be it. I’d rather have deep connections with a few people than superficial ones with many. I will also be focusing my virtual gatherings to those that involve people I actually know (or who really want to get to know me and practice/share together) and doing my best to get people to gather in person.
I might even start writing letters again (if I can get anyone’s actual mailing address).
But those actions are just the beginning. They are mostly ways of non-participation. Sometimes, we have to start by eliminating what we don’t want or what’s in the way, until we find what we do want. To that point, I want to explore what it means to really participate in community. What are we sharing? What actions – even if they are inconvenient and time-consuming – are necessary to create community? What does it take to create a true spiritual community? And, how much time and effort am I willing to put into it? How much are you willing to participate?
If anyone would like to explore this with me, reach out. Tell me what community means to you. Tell me what you need to feel less like you’re floating in space alone. Tell me what you think we need to do, how you want to participate. I mean that. Don’t just make a comment here. Don’t send a text. Call me or, better yet, send me a letter.
At the risk of inviting hate mail, my actual mailing address is 1258 Betts Bridge Road, West Pawlet, VT. 05775. If you send me a letter (or a postcard), I will be overjoyed to receive your presence through the mail. I’ll also send one back. I might even decorate the envelope or include something special. It might cost more than an email (how much is a Forever stamp these days?), and it might take more time, but I think it’s worth it. Do you?
I’ll be checking my mailbox (not my inbox!).