Visiting offline

"A typical information worker who sits at a computer all day turns to his e-mail program more than 50 times and uses instant messaging 77 times, according to one measure by RescueTime, a company that analyzes computer habits. The company, which draws its data from 40,000 people who have tracking software on their computers, found that on average the worker also stops at 40 Web sites over the course of the day.

The fractured attention comes at a cost. In the United States, more than $650 billion a year in productivity is lost because of unnecessary interruptions, predominately mundane matters, according to Basex. The firm says that a big chunk of that cost comes from the time it takes people to recover from an interruption and get back to work."






So now the companies (see link) who helped create easy access to email, who helped create emails, for Pete's sake, are trying to help those of us who spend way too many minutes surfing the Internet break our addiction.

Not because it's an addiction, apparently. Because workers can be more productive when they focus on a task, instead of the task and the message and the email and the phone call...crazy busy isn't productively busy.



How do I know that? I found it out while avoiding writing my sermon.

Sunday afternoon our Internet and cable stopped working. As some of you know, it's hard to lose a connection to the virtual world-a world that seems so real.

At any rate, a Comcast fellow came out this morning and analyzed our problem. Turned out that a young man helping me with a weed-whacker in the garden cut the cable-something I suspected, but about which I could do nothing (except call for help).

Tomorrow I am going back to the Bennison trial, which is supposed to conclude with the bishop in the chair and then closing arguments.

At issue is whether Bennison hid his brother John' sexual abuse of a minor in the 1970s.

The trial doesn't put Bishop Bennison in a good light. But it's also an indictment of other Episcopal clergy-particularly bishops. They knew about John Bennison's abuse and reinstated him to the clergy. So many people high up in the church knew about John-common sense would have led them to ask how whether Charles knew.

It is tragic that the victim's family again and again tried to find closure and healing in a denomination where no one, as far as one can tell, had the courage to own their responsibility.

Yet I suspect that's not going to be the moral of the story. As much as I am no fan of the Bishop's behavior or his leadership, I still believe he represents one of many Episcopal clergy.

This is a sordid trial, not solely for Bishop Bennison, but for men of a certain generation who blushed, who was disgusted, but who did little or nothing to help the church move ahead.

Juan's right on

Take a look at this column by NPR and Fox's Juan Williams. I think he's right-Obama has to address his reasons for staying at Trinity Church for 20 years, and for his ties to Rev. Wright. It actually may help voters understand the Democratic candidate if he takes the risk of speaking in a more confessional voice.

A lot of white voters simply don't get the rhetoric of black power-and it frightens them. Right or not right-ignorant or informed. The Democrat who grew up biracial in a changing society still rent by racial divides has to discover a way to reach them, also.

The iron fist

It seems like the Senator from New York has finally gotten the message. Although she did take many of the big states, Obama has the delegates. On Saturday, she'll party-and she'll ponder her future. It won't include being elected President of the United States this year. This year, we'll elect either the oldest guy to be chosen President, or America's first black President.

Amazing, isn't it?

Now that it's almost au revoir, catch you on the Senate floor, Hillary, it's not so hard to see why she had such a tough time giving in. She has won a lot of primaries since Iowa. She was, in many ways, as she has said again and again, the candidate for the working and middle class women and men who are on the losing edge of the gap between rich and poor.

It's an understatement to say that this campaign didn't bring out the best in Bill and Hillary Clinton. Putting that behind him is going to be only one of the challenges Obama will confront as he gets ready to step back into the ring-this time, against a Republican....

Into the Fire

Bishop Bennison's trial is next week at a hotel in Philadelphia. He's being tried on charges he abetted his brother, then a priest, in covering up the brother' sexual abuse of a minor.

It's not something that occurs often-the trial of a bishop in the Episcopal Church. In fact, I don't recall the last time. Was it Walter Righter (more than ten years ago)? As it happens, I'm taking services for a friend this and next Sunday. I''ll probably need to explain the charges and the jury and their decision.

Of course, no one knows what the verdict is going to be. Right now, it's kind of like knowing that there is going to be an accident, but not knowing who is going to need to be in the hospital and who will need rehabilitation. Well, if Daniel and his friends walked through the fire....

Stormy Weather

Driving home from the salon today, I heard the weather forecast. Our whole local area has a tornado watch. As the rain began slipping down the windshield, I looked nervously at the tall branches of the trees by the fields. They were swaying, but very gently.

We've been darned fortunate in the Northeast to date. Yes, we've had some flooding-one of my friend's mothers lost her house where the dunes had been swept away (in part by bad planning by local authorities). Yes, we've had some downed trees. But we have experienced nothing in contrast to people in the south and the far west.

I sometimes wonder what would happen, God forbid, if a weather disaster- say a tornado-hit the White House or Capitol Hill. Would it change George Bush's indolent contempt for those who advocate mandating new rules to combat climate change?

Read the article by Charles Blow linked above, and ask yourself what price complacency.

What is YOUR calling?

The courage to heed your calling
Till the fertile paradoxes of embracing life's larger purposes.
By Elizabeth
>
> Recently, my daughter told me that one of the nuns who student-taught at her school was being assigned to live out the mission of her order in another locale.
> As I tried to explain to my 13-year-old, her teacher's move is part of the discipline of a community-based life vowed to holiness, self-sacrifice and service.
> The notion of a calling that transcends personal ambition or financial gain is foreign to our contemporary American landscape, where the concept of workplace stability is becoming archaic, employee loyalty a quaint anachronism and the notion of a "common good" the province of cloistered academicians.
> Yet around us we see the psychological and spiritual cost of a society that chases the chimera of increased productivity, ranking it above individual worth and self-respect.
> Layoffs, reassignments, and the exodus of talent from industries in transition exact a toll that isn't confined to the victims.
> It is time to rediscover the ancient, sacred notion of vocation.
> As a newly minted Christian convert in my teens, and then as an idealistic young Episcopal priest, I thought that professing a vocation, a particular call made by God to serve in the world, was a choice made once in a lifetime.
> Then I began to observe older clergy grappling with disillusionment or complacency as what had once seemed new and inspiring had became routine and dutiful. Their struggles served as a warning - and as a lesson.
> Whether we wear a clerical collar, a nurse's uniform, or an imported silk tie to work, we should always be asking ourselves not only how our work fulfills us, but also whether it is truly making a difference in the lives of those we profess to serve.
> Not a comfortable notion, is it?
> Nor should it be.
> Even a brief encounter with the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures tells us that acquiring a purpose is no walk on the beach.
> Rather reluctantly answering God's call to lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt into freedom, Moses endured 40 years of squabbling and complaining, and died before seeing the Promised Land.
> It is no wonder that the Hebrew prophets weren't always joyful about afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted; such activities were not only frequently unpleasant, but also dangerous.
> With a "yes" to the Angel Gabriel, Mary accepted a call to bear the incarnate Christ and to watch the son she loved condemned and executed as a common criminal.
> Exploring one's vocation - a purpose broader, deeper and higher than a particular job or set of circumstances - does not guarantee stability or a comfortable life.
> I have been challenged, and moved, as I watched an old friend on a vocational pilgrimage consciously step well outside her comfort zone. A Catholic with an inclination towards social-justice ministry, my friend, Jackie, kept questioning herself and her calling.
> A few years ago, Jackie lost her husband. The months of grieving that followed were also an occasion for deep reflection. Last summer, she left her home in Vermont, and moved to Detroit for a year to volunteer with Mercy Corps.
> Adjusting to community life was occasionally painful, and sometimes frustrating. But over the last nine months, Jackie's e-mails have expressed growing confidence about her abilities and the joy of being "part of the local color, part of the community."
> Contemplating the future a few months ago, she asked for prayers that she would be where she ought to be, when she needs to be there.
> "I trust that if I keep God before me . . . I will no longer be afraid of my life wherever I live it," she wrote me recently.
> Fulfillment in willing service.
> Freedom in embracing discipline.
> Security in the midst of change.
> These are the fertile paradoxes of embracing a purpose larger than our own well-being.
> Think what we could do to heal ourselves, and our society, if we embrace our callings and use our unique talents to renew ourselves and help heal the world.
> Ponder what will happen to us, and to our culture, if we don't.
> It's a slam dunk. Isn't it?
>

Elizabeth lives and writes in Glenmoore.
>



Find this article at: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/pa/20080528_The_courage_to_heed_your_calling.html?adString=inq.news/pa;!category=pa;&randomOrd=052908082555