Digital Vespers

In blue-lit rooms we bow our heads,
Not to pray, but to scroll through feeds
Of endless information streams—
Where once were rosaries, now screens
Mark time in electronic beads.

Each notification’s gentle ping
Echoes like a distant chapel bell,
While algorithms track our paths
Like ancient monks who kept their math
In books where sacred stories dwell.

Our fingers trace these glass-faced shrines,
Seeking wisdom in the glow
Of pixels formed in perfect rows—
Each message sent, a modern prose
To fill the spaces that we know.

Between the bytes and bandwidth broad,
Where are the whispers of the divine?
Can grace traverse through fiber-optic
Lines that span our world chaotic,
Threading souls through space and time?

Perhaps in every shared prayer tweet,
Each virtual candle that we light,
In every post that speaks of hope,
We forge new ways for faith to cope
With distance in the digital night.

The ancient saints could never dream
Of congregations spread so far,
Yet joined in ways they cannot see—
A vast electronic mystery
That bridges where and who we are.

Still, something calls us to return
To tactile beads and printed page,
To find the balance as we walk
Between the ways our fathers talked
With God, and this new pixeled age.

Let us remember as we swipe
Through countless screens of fleeting light:
The truest connection still resides
In hearts where living faith abides,
Beyond the reach of megabytes.

This article appears in September 2025.