Who says no good comes from cyberspace? Everyday, we read and hear the stories. A young man has taken his life after being bullied online on social networks. Nigerian fraud is so prolific, we make jokes about it. And, then there are the people who are murdered and the victims were unlucky enough to fall into a trap set in the classifieds. When I think over the almost 15 years I have been in the cyber world, I believe I have been truly blessed. Yes, there is so much negativity to be found there, but that is because there is evil in the world. If you seek the devil, you will find him no matter where you roam. But if it's God you seek, you will find him there in abundance.
I have friends, long time friends, that I have met on Yahoo! email groups. I've received support to get through my illness and my daughters' no less from these friends, in some ways more, than I gathered from people I see face to face on a regular basis. Most of the encouragement I have gleaned from online relationships has been not only just what I needed, it has kept feeding fuel to the fire that is my love for Jesus. I wouldn't be many of the things I am if not for "this machine".
Media has always been the driving force shaping society. Ancient peoples painted and marked walls of their caves. God blazed the Ten Commandments on stone tablets. The Vatican Library contains volumes of ancient writings, original writings from King Henry VIII, writing love letters to Ann Boleyn. Villages had the town crier, then postal networks, books and newspapers. Now, we have Scott Pelley or Katie Couric. I know my grown daughters still believe that I was alive when Abraham Lincoln was president, but they take lightly the fact that when I was a little girl, there wasn't a TV in every home. That is just inconceivable in their minds. I do remember having many a teacher preach against the evils of television. Even though it connected the world in a way that people couldn't yet grasp, the same naysayers who warned the world about Satan invading homes via the tube have offspring, warning us of the same evils on the net.
I understand their misgivings, I really do. I am equally so repulsed by the deviant behaviors that seem to slither through the digital device that gives me this forum.
Still, seek and you shall find. It has served as the alarm for me to minister to the world who is loosing its crown jewel: Life. The family is suffering. The vocation of marriage is suffering. Children, unborn and birthed, are suffering. Everything that has made human life beautiful is being destroyed on a global scale and bad times seem to be coming a warp speed. So much strife, so much malevolent behavior paving the road to perdition.
Then, I find (on Facebook, the ubiquitous social network) this website. It is simple, but absolutely beautiful IN its simplicity. I have spent hours penning the facts about the charism of the Oblate Sisters of Mary Magdalene, and the creators of this page give few words and a few images to say it quite completely. And sweetly:
http://www.jesus-loves-you.org/?p=439
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