Today’s Nunday has an honorary nun guest — Brother Chris Valka, CSB, of the Congregation of Saint Basil. And yes, we have his picture! Chris recently spoke on Faith in Cyber Communities at St. Joseph’s College, University of Alberta, and was written up in the Western Catholic Reporter.

Valka presented historical highlights of the Church’s mostly positive views on communications.

“History not only gives us perspective, but it also conveys the optimistic stance the Church takes towards media. The Church has never seen the media as an obstacle,” he said.

People who cannot find answers at the institutional Church of brick and mortar are searching for answers in other places, including the cyber community. This gives people worldwide a place to gather and ask life’s tough questions. In spite of the great distance between them, they can debate, discuss and live out the answers.

Be sure to read Brother Chris’s other observations and ideas about new media and the Catholic Church in the article New media can break through barriers.

I had the pleasure of meeting Brother Chris back in 2007 when he interviewed me for his podcast series Conversations with Macrina:

A Discussion About Religious Life (June 23, 2007)

What do you think we religious should be doing online? Would you like us to do more with new media such as podcasts, live discussions, etc.? Give me some ideas about what would interest you, what you think would be helpful to people.

The Vatican has just published a message from Pope Benedict XVI in anticipation of the 43rd World Day of Communications.

New Technologies, New Relationships: Promoting a Culture of Respect, Dialogue and Friendship (January 24, 2009) is the theme for this year. Writes the Pope,

The new digital technologies are, indeed, bringing about fundamental shifts in patterns of communication and human relationships. These changes are particularly evident among those young people who have grown up with the new technologies and are at home in a digital world …

Pope Benedict addresses the digital generation and offers to them (and to all of us) ideas of how to use the new technologies for good “to promote human understanding and solidarity.”

These technologies are truly a gift to humanity and we must endeavour to ensure that the benefits they offer are put at the service of all human individuals and communities, especially those who are most disadvantaged and vulnerable.

While noting the many practical benefits of the new media and technologies, the Pope points out that the digital communication ultimately reflects our fundamental human desire to relate to one other.

This desire for communication and friendship is rooted in our very nature as human beings and cannot be adequately understood as a response to technical innovations…. When we find ourselves drawn towards other people, when we want to know more about them and make ourselves known to them, we are responding to God’s call – a call that is imprinted in our nature as beings created in the image and likeness of God, the God of communication and communion.

Pope Benedict encourages people “Who are active in the emerging environment of digital communication to commit themselves to promoting a culture of respect, dialogue and friendship.” He then goes on to explain what each of these three elements mean and concludes with an appeal to young Catholic believers to mirror the great Apostles and disciples of the early Church who brought the Good News of Jesus to the world by living the Gospel and proclaiming the Good News to all in the digital world.

I highly recommend reading the full text of the Pope’s message. What does it mean in terms of how we use Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogs, forums, text messaging, and other social networking technologies? How are we (Catholic sisters, parents, teachers, catechists, vocation directors, priests, and other Catholic leaders) present on these social networking sites and using the new technologies? Let us know what you think about the Pope’s message and what it’s call is to you.

P.S. Pope Benedict also just launched a Vatican YouTube channel. Read more at the LA Times.

September and October have been a wirlwind of activity for me. Let’s see … I’ve traveled to Iowa, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. I’ve seen the Fall colors change in varying degrees in all of these states. I’ve prayed, played, presented, listened, worked, prayed some more, hiked, explored, laughed, and communed with God, with others, and with the great outdoors. It’s been a trip, literally and figuratively, and hopefully in a couple weeks things will settle down. So I’ve been a bit remiss in responding to emails (hang on — if you’ve written to me, I’ll be in touch soon!) and writing about various happenings.

One such happening was my delightful visit with Catholic Mom extraordinaire, Lisa Hendey. Lisa is the woman behind the popular website CatholicMom.com as well as the blog Catholic Mom Moments and Catholic Moments Podcast. Lisa is doing a tremendously good work for Motherhood and for spreading the Good News online. Lisa has an intelligent and compassionate Catholic presence online.

I first met Lisa online in one or another social network that we both were on. While plurking one day, I saw that Lisa was going to be visiting Chicago (she lives in Fresno … probably a lot warmer there right now than here in the Windy City). I invited her to visit and she accepted! Lisa came to Loyola Press where we chatted, toured the place, had lunch and did a podcast.  It was pretty awesome. Having had a few weeks to reflect back on our visit, what remains with me is a sense of spiritual companionship — being with someone where there is a meeting of spirits. Lisa’s active engagement in online ministry and use of new media is a blessing to me personally as well because it’s helpful to have ministerial colleagues in this vast World Wide Web. Online ministry is like a new mission land, a frontier to be explored and to be present on and to reflect the light of Christ. Plus, creating and sustaining an online ministry on a shoe-string (read: no) budget, finding time amidst other responsibilities, dealing with wonky networks and technical issues, etc. — all these can be a huge challenge for those of us in the digital missions. I’m glad to have Lisa as a friend in these adventures!

I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of Lisa online and hopefully for an occasional visit here at A Nun’s Life.

To catch a bit of Lisa’s and my time together, listen to Lisa’s Catholic Moments podcast for a conversation between the two of us.

As a blogger and social media explorer, I inhabit the virtual world of the Internet on a daily basis. In a sense it’s really not virtual because real relationships and connections are made. But the people I meet online are usually known only by an avatar, a name, a few words of comment, and perhaps a blog of their own. Real people, but filtered through digital media — as am I.

So it is always a good, though unsettling experience, to connect with these same folks without the filter of digital media. This happened to me several times this week …

1. the host of a radio show read my comments, emailed me, then called me to see if I’d chat about the Miss Sister 2008 beauty pageant
2. an actor playing the role of a nun contacted me so that she could portray the nun as authentically as possible
3. a blogger whom I respect was at my place of ministry (When I met Julie D. of Happy Catholic that M&M commercial flashed through my mind where the M&Ms run into Santa and they say, “He DOES exist!”)

It takes a little getting used to because as with any filtered encounter (a picture, a website, a comment) one creates an image of the person in one’s mind — perfectly normal. But then when you learn more about the person, have an actually encounter with the flesh-and-blood person, it changes everything. Even a brief encounter with a real, live person can be so much more powerful than the virtual persons we are on the Internet. It gives me pause to think about how much our persons, our very presence communicates about who we are. It’s really quite cool and quite beautiful.

I’m experimenting with Plurk, a social networking type site. I’m still exploring it and learning about it — essentially it’s a kind of instant chat application where you can see what your friends are up to and have mini conversations (140 characters or less for each comment) with one another. I’ve been on Twitter and never thought I’d like Plurk, but I really do! I think it’s the funky icons and generally querkiness that I love. And I think it lends itself to more meaningful interaction, not mere broadcasting.

If you are on Plurk or interested in trying it out, visit me at Plurk. I can’t say that my plurks are always going to be inspirational, just the daily stuff of life including random banter.