Category: Blogging

Only Connect

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Last night I saw The Social Network on DVD (Thanks, SAG!). It totally captured the irony of this connected life. The movie also questions the primacy of male nerd culture, the difficulty in small business start ups, and the ownership of creative ideas.

In a closing scene Zuckerberg is left alone in a corporate office right after a potential friend declines his dinner invitation. He opens his computer to Facebook befriend her online. It is lonely, true. Yet, the scene reminds me that when the real world stings of rejection, having an onscreen persona can ameliorate the sting.

There is a place for online meet ups. For example, today I’m hoping to meet some of my fellow NaNoWriMo writers whom I’ve only received emails from during national novel writing month. Having companions while being a lonely writer has led me to greater compassion for other writers. I am grateful for my writing compatriots’ inspiration and productivity prompts. I’m grateful for real life workmates too. I’m always IM’ing my work buddy for motivation on being more productivity (Thanks, Beth!).

Word!

The president reminds the nation to connect in his awesome inspiring address this week:

“Use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together.”

I have written before about being wired to care and seeing my own need for compassion as a weakness and not a strength, especially on the job (which, I know, is ironic, given that I work at a Christian agency.)

http://gettingmyessayspublished.wordpress.com/2010/07/03/wired-to-care/

I think my desire to connect and be compassionate and have compassion is okay. It is bound up with my innate and human drive to be part of a community.

I have no idea why I receive weekly emails from Rector Bill Tully of St. Bart’s Church, but I’m glad that I do. http://www.stbarts.org/bill-tullys-blog/ (I should visit this church for my church a day (week) blog https://mbcoudal.wordpress.com/ )

Tully is one of those brilliant church people who is addressing and writing about the need for connection and community.

This week he says, “…America is a hothouse of communities. In towns, cities, neighborhoods, congregations, clubs, schools, service projects, even in offices and places of work, we have a chance to practice the known virtues of love.”

Tully quotes our President too, who said:

“I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.”

What he said.

The Dead Are Following Me (on Twitter)

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It’s freaking me out that C.S. Lewis and Louise Nevelson are following me on Twitter. Didn’t they die? If they were alive I’d be oh, so happy to know they were following me. Me, one of their lowly fans. They were genius.

But how would you feel if one of your dead heroes was following you? Like Elvis or Marilyn? You’d say, “Don’t follow me, go back to your eternal rest. You lived your life. People followed you when you were alive (although not on Twitter) and you might have followed people too. That was your time. You did it. Now is my time. Because I am alive. And when you’re alive you can do these kinds of things. So don’t follow me from the grave.”

People who died in the second half of the 20th century shouldn’t follow anybody. They haven’t been dead long enough. Maybe people from the first half of the 20th century is okay. Like, okay, Victorian dead people can follow me.

It’d be okay if Sherlock Holmes or Miss Marple followed me. They’re fictional (aren’t they?) and better yet, they’re British — that’s a whole different game.

But not C.S. Lewis and Louise Nevelson — although Clive and Louise, if you’re reading this, I want you to know I do like your work. But no, don’t follow me. Besides Louise Nevelson reminds me of my mother. And I don’t want my mother following me either. At least not in this life.

Family Dinner

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When kids eat dinner with their families on a regular basis, they do better academically and socially. Tons of studies show that teens who sit down to a family dinner experiment less with drug, alcohol and sexuality than kids who don’t have family meal time.

Okay, I get it. But I have a question. While kids might do better, how are the parents doing? 

Hello! A homemade dinner is a lot of work, especially for parents who already work (or parents with Parkinson’s Disease!) And the kids are rarely grateful. (Tonite I made rice, ready-made Indian food and a salad — nothing fancy.)

I understand why lots of parents behave like the ones in the sitcom, The Middle — throwing bags of fast food to the kids who are plunked down in front of the TV. They throw each kid a bag of food as if to a lion in a cage. It’s easier. Life is hard. The kids are wild.

But they might even be wilder if they didn’t have time to unwind with some evening conversation.

Conversation does civilize kids (and adults). Dinner is the only time to talk without an agenda. Tonite Hayden’s friend was over. We talked about book clubs, Shake Shack, snow days, how hard history is. We talked about puns like, “If your nose runs and your feet smell, you must’ve been built upside down.”

I did get ticked off during dinner when Hayden’s phone beeped with text alerts, but he threw it on the couch before I had time to snatch his cell phone away. And that’s what dinner is, too, time snatched away — stolen from time we’d spend on the computer or in front of TV.

It’s worth it. I think. Yet, making family meal time work is a lot of work.

Get Up Early

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I have been posting to one of my four (yes, 4!) blogs every day for a week.

The first few days I wrote first thing in the morning, around 6:30 am, right after I recorded my dreams in my journal and sipped my coffee.  Then the kids had to be at school early or I had to be be at work early, I felt a cold coming on, so I wrote at lunch time around noon. These last two nights, I have written while yelling at my kids, “Get. To. Bed. Now.” at 11 pm. I felt the day breathing down my neck. I felt, “I have to finish this blog post by midnight!”

I want to return to my early morning blog writing sessions. I want to write before the family wakes and wants me to make them bacon, sign their permission slips or pass out money for lunch. Benjamin Franklin’s admonition to “Early to Bed, Early to Rise,” can be supplanted by Arianna Huffington’s Ted Talk http://www.ted.com/talks/arianna_huffington_how_to_succeed_get_more_sleep.html

Arianna is brilliant and funny and so right. We Type A women are not getting enough sleep.  Arianna advises that women need to sleep our way to the top. Literally. For me, that means going to bed by 10 and getting up at 6 ish. (Some studies suggest the brain is most alert first thing in the morning.)

Incidentally, I met Arianna at a women’s writing conference at Skidmore College through the IWWG (International Women’s Writing Guild) probably 18 years ago. She was memorable, curious, friendly, smart and glamorous. I think we were in a memoir writing class together. Since then, Arianna has slept her way to the top and I want to too.

Twitter versus Facebook

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Lately, I’ve received Twitter messages that say, “Follow me on Facebook too!” I thought Twitter and Facebook were two different worlds.

I thought Facebook was for people you had met in high school or real life; and Twitter was for people you wished you’d met in high school or real life. My Twitter friends are writer-types with names like SmartBitches, AmyLow, GottaLaff and HippieChick (I wish I’d thought up a clever name. I’m simply MaryBethC). My Facebook friends are also sassy-types, only they use their real names.

After being on the Twitter-verse when I log on to Facebook, the Facebook world feels slow and earnest. It feels like cross country skiing after downhill racing. 

Sometimes I like the random roll of the dice of Twitter. And sometimes I like the mashed-up friendliness of Facebook.

After I’ve been on Facebook a while, when I get on Twitter, I wonder Who ARE these people? Do I know them? But I can’t stop reading their updates.

I’d like to write more about this right now, but I’ve gotta check my Facebook and Twitter accounts. I’ve got to see what my friends — real and cyber — are up to.

Off the Grid

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On Christmas Eve day and Christmas Day, I unplugged.

Time off the grid was not boring. I had good food, good times with family — card games and board games. We played Crazy Eights, Headbanz, Funglish, Backgammon, and Taboo. We went outside and cut down a tree. We decorated the tree. We went caroling. We ate, we drank, we laughed.

I did not check email, Facebook, Twitter at all. Oh, noble me. But I made one mistake — I checked my voicemail. I wondered if one of my brothers or parents had called. No, instead there was a phone message from Elizabeth, the funny nurse at the dermatologist’s office. She said the last biopsy was fine, but that I had Grover’s Disease. She said, “It’s just a minor skin irritation that seems to strike old Italian men and you and me.” (I told you she was funny.)

How would I know how “minor” this skin irritation was if I couldn’t Google it? I wondered what Wikipedia had to say.

It was one thing not to update my Facebook status (‘I am making bacon for breakfast’), but quite another not to be able to peruse medical journals and find a cure for this disease that — who knows, could potentially ravish me in an instant? Why call it a disease if it wasn’t serious? I had a very good reason to search the world wide web. But noble me, I did not. I shrugged. What could I do about it any way?

I made a joke at the dinner table, “I just learned that I have Grover’s Disease. It sounds like something you get at Sesame Street.” My sister in law said, “You’ll soon be turning blue and furry.” Funny. (I know a lot of funny women!)

Well, my two days off the grid passed. I got on line. The first thing I did was check Grover’s Disease at Wikipedia. Indeed, it’s an uninteresting and very minor skin irritation. Thank God I did not ruin my social media and internet sabbath to learn that. Sometimes it’s just better not to know.

The Hunted and the Hunter Mind

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From my desk at work, I watch the hawk of Riverside Church dive bomb a flock of pigeons. It is impossible not to watch, like a car wreck at the side of the road. It is thrilling.

I imagine the rush of excitement as the pigeons circle and escape. I imagine the hunger of the hawk. I stare and hope for something dramatic to happen. I have never seen the kill. But occasionally — oh, this is rich — I see a blizzard of white feathers rain outside of my window. Joseph Conrad summed it up well, “The horror, the horror.”

My window to Riverside Church is like my internet screen. I watch and wait for something delicious to happen. I am a passive watcher, a vicarious hawk or pigeon. I imagine my escape or my hunger.

But the internet is just a window into life. It is not life. I am not a primordial being — panting, fluttering, escaping. I am a creature of reason, contemplative and kind. I make eye contact with my fellow human beings.

Life happens, not in the spires of the Gothic church with wings and flapping, but down below where mortals dwell, where smiles are exchanged and pleasantries murmured.

Dan Licardo inspired this post with a Facebook post about the hawk of Riverside Church.

what matters most

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When I was writing for the business school at Pace University, I interviewed a professor (whose name I don’t remember) about time, happiness and pay.

The professor said her research had shown, “The more money an executive made, the happier the person was with his or her job.” This surprised me.

I wasn’t making much at Pace, but I was happy. I worked for brilliant women. We worked hard, but had flexibility, creativity and purpose. After viewing this video (or animated chart), I feel affirmed. I am right. It is more than money that motivates people at work.

It is probably true that with higher pay comes more autonomy, mastery and pupose. These are key.

Thanks to NYCityMama for reminding me — that people need more than pay to be happy at work. Check out the funny video at the bottom of her post from RSA.org. http://t.co/dkJhjht

That being said, I do hope I get a raise this year. Last year we all did without.

On Facebook, Megachurches, and Brevity

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Episcopal priest and social media expert, Tom Ehrich, began his talk on social media with a bunch of paper handouts — extremely gloomy charts showing the steady and certain downward march in Episcopal church attendance.

“The world of the 1950s ended a long time ago but churches hung onto it. We are the corner hardware store in a Home Depot world,” Ehrich said. People laughed uncomfortably.

For the record, I still love corner hardware stores. I like to say “Gene Doubray” (dzień dobry) to the Polish guys who own the hardware store on 72nd Street. I have never been in a Home Depot. But I like their commercials that show older women as experts. I digress, back to last week’s luncheon. Here are my takeaways:

Facebook

How does Facebook work? “No one knows.” (Someone must know!) “Facebook is a mystery. Facebook tells your friends ‘Here’s what I’m caring about today.'”

Update your church’s Facebook frequently and recruit people to attend your church. Inviting doesn’t work; recruiting does (recruting always sounds militaristic to me).

Give people what they want. When people come to a church they may have questions. But the questions they have will be ones about their own lives — “Should I send my kid to private or public school?” they ask. They don’t ask, “What is your Sunday school like?” Ehrich said. True, true.

Create buzz. Let churches “touch people,” not “create members.” True.

Why do restaurants in New York not have to advertise? Restaurants get business by generating buzz, Ehrich said.

Megachurches

Getting people to attend Sunday worship is not enough. Churches have to be open 7 days/24 hours a day.

“Sunday is for tourists,” Ehrich said. He gave an example that Rick Warren’s megachurch, Saddleback Church, has its real worship on Wednesday nights, not Sundays.

“The Megachurch is not the enemy. They have methods that work. They greet newcomers. Train leaders.” Warren’s goal was to start 2,000 new small groups in a year; that is, 20,000 new members.

Megachurch Willow Creek sends an email newsletter that reaches 3 million readers. (I’m not sold on e-newsletters.) In his weekly Willow Creek e-newsletter, Bill Hybels, the founder, has passion and enthusiasm for upcoming sermon.

In his e-newsletters, Hybels writes, “Please come. If you can’t come, please pray for me.” That is cool. (How often do grown men asked to be prayed for? Love it!)

Full disclosure: for several months as a teenager in Park Ridge, Illinois, I was a part of Son City, which Bill Hybels founded. It was really fun. I don’t remember him specifically, but I remember that I sang rockin’ Christian songs in a big auditorium. I’m not a singer, but I remember thinking I sounded really good. I loved the idea of Son City, especially when I heard rumors that kids were allowed to run around and have chicken-fights in the church aisles of the South Park Church. I digress.

Digression on blogs may be unnecessary.

Brevity

Ehrich was a proponent of brevity. On Twitter: “140-character limit is magic,” Ehrich said.

Ehrich blogs daily. I love that. His word limit is 100 words. My blog posts tend to exceed that. (This one’s up to 560!). A blog doesn’t need to be friendly but can establish you as an expert. (I wonder if my blog(s) are making me an expert at anything.)

Another takeaway: Social media is a good tool for networking but not for controling. And these luncheons are definitely good for networking and sparking lively conversations about religion and media.

Ehrich’s blog and web pages can be found at: http://www.morningwalkmedia.com

The November RCC (Religion Commnicators Council) luncheon was held near the United Nations at the Episcopal building on 43rd and 2nd. The RCC luncheons and events are always provocative.