What Would Jesus Blog? That is the question I tuned into on the car radio on my way home from work today. Our very own AMERICA blogger Father Jim Martin was among those interviewed by NPR's "All Things Considered" regarding the Pope's exhortation to priests to blog on. Apparently, cyberspace is the destination of today's missionary.
The Pope was advised, in the event that he intends to blog, to blog every day, to use links freely, to borrow from YouTube if he has blogger's block, and to grow a thick skin if he opens his blog up to comments. I must confess that I am a terrible blogger, as I don't do any of these things (although, as a weekly columnist in a conservative county, I find that my skin has toughened to rhino-strength).
As honored as I am to blog for AMERICA, I am but an occasional blogger. My blog entries have very little zing, since I am low-tech and rather oblivious to new inventions and trends. (My family gave me a new phone for Christmas in the fervent hope that I would finally learn to text message. Which I am doing, and actually enjoying, although several years after the newness has dimmed.)
Back to the question: Would Jesus blog? It's hard to say. I suppose if he were incarnated as a twenty-first century man, he would use the customary twenty-first century tools of communication. But if you think about how Jesus really got things done, you might conclude that Jesus would probably count on us to do the blogging. Remember the story of the hungry masses on the hillside? "You feed them!" he told the Apostles. And by the grace of God, they did. He sent them out by twos to preach and to heal and to spread the Gospel. And they did. The Church's very existence in the twenty-first century is proof that Jesus knew how to motivate his followers. Perhaps the Holy Spirit is the precursor, as well as the breath, of the spiritual blog.
But here's a question for the theologians: Would Jesus be a PC or a Mac?
WWJB?
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What would he write about? My guess the lives of the people around him, especially the poor, their fears and worries, their hope for salvation and liberation, their daily struggles and their little victories.
Above all it would be good news for the poor - and probably bad news for us who have so much.
But maybe I think this way because that is what I blog about, here in western Honduras.
And so I guess Jesus would blog in ways that surprise us, astonish us, and call us to change our lives.
Parables? Maybe. And challenging to the status quo, inviting and encouraging us all to a new way of being, outside of the accepted circle, daring us to give up our insecurities and fears. But I can't see his blog having much in common with the vast majority of blogs that call themselves Catholic. I don't think he'd have much to say about the goings on at the Vatican.
Definitely a MAC. ... if for no other reason than the beauty.