Internet age and love

To love God with all our heart, soul, and mind; and in the same way love our neighbor as we love ourselves. This is the very meaning of human life, as God meant it to be. (From today’s Gospel reading, Mt. 22: 34-40)

Thus, human love involves our total person — body, mind, heart, and soul. This means PRESENCE. And this is where we have to make real efforts not to fall into the trap of the “internet culture”. Use the latter as a tool, with caution.

A passenger took a taxicab from the airport to the hotel, which took a whole hour. And between the two of them, they were doing six different things. The driver was continuously having a conversation through his cellphone, watching a video on the dashboard, and driving the cab. The passenger was listening to music through his iPod, reflecting, and writing an article on his laptop. At the end of the trip, the passenger realized that the only thing the driver and he never did was to talk to each other!

This is what the technologist L. Stone calls continuous, partial attention, the disease of the internet age. “We’re so accessible, we’re inaccessible. We can’t find the off switch on our devices or ourselves....We want to wear an iPod and listen to our own playlist in order to block out the rest of the world and protect ourselves from all that noise. We are everywhere — except where we actually are physically.”

How can we love our neighbor with heart, soul, and mind that way? “In our e-connected existence, the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel are especially challenging: to love with our whole heart and soul and mind requires us to ‘unplug’ and be present to one another as our loving God is engaged with us, to seek not just images and perceptions but behold compassion and experience love in one another. May God grant us the grace to unplug in order to connect, to turn off in order to see, to make ourselves inaccessible in order to be available to God’s love in our midst” (From Connections for October 2008).

This is what continues to inspire me with our team of trained counselors who have been working, gratis et amore, in different centers for rescued streetchildren and youth through an intensive Resiliency Program (REPRO) that is conducted one day a week for 24 weeks. Right now, they are about to complete such a module in two centers — the Asilo de San Vicente de Paul in Manila and the Children’s Garden in Antipolo, Rizal. And their way of connecting with our poor streetchildren is not through e-mail or cellphones, but by loving them with all their heart, soul, and mind.

At the end of their REPRO sessions, the participants are encouraged to express through words or art work in their Resilience Albums what their thoughts and feelings are. Let me quote what some of them have written in their albums.

“Ang aking karanasan sa REPRO…pagtitiwala sa iba at sa sarili….REPRO ang nagbibigay sa akin ng kaliwanagan na ako ay may halaga at kabutihan sa loob ko.” — Danny, 14

“Ang pagmamahal sa kapwa…ang pagbibigay ng ligaya sa kapwa….Tumulong ang REPRO upang matanggal ang mga tinik sa aming dibdib….Salamat po.” — Cholo, 14

“Di ko akalain na meron din pala akong magagandang ugali; dito ko lang nakita sa REPRO. Ang ganda talaga ng REPRO, kahit every Friday lang, ang saya! Ang pinakagusto ko sa REPRO…pinaka the best ay ang pagkilala sa aming sarili.” — Weng, 14

“Gusto ko sa REPRO ‘di ko makalimutan nilagyan ako ng star” (stars of affirmation given each participant). — Jenny, 16

“Sa REPRO hindi pinagtatawanan ang may kapansanan.” — Marie, 14

“Ang natutunan ko sa REPRO….Lagi mong tandaan, meron kang kalakasan.” — Marissa, 14

“Ang REPRO…ay nagbibigay ng kasiyahan at pagkakaisa.” — Mario, 15

“Tuwing naaalala namin ang REPRO, sumasaya ang puso ko.” — Mia, 15

These rescued children and youth, and many more like them, are being cared for and educated in such centers, so that in time — they may move on and lead normal lives. By then, they would have learned how to love God with all their heart, soul, and mind, and their neighbor as they love themselves.