Local Loyalty and World Loyalty

Combining Bioregionalism and Neo-Nomadism​


World loyalty without local loyalty is empty. 
​ Local loyalty without world loyalty is blind.
​

with an appreciative nod to Bruce Epperly's God Online


​Bioregionalism

I am rooted in this place.  I am loyal to my family, to these friends,
to ​this community, to these farmers, to this portion of the Earth


​
​Neo-Nomadism 


I have no fixed address; I am a citizen of the world;
many of my best friends are on social media;
my home is my smart phone​
​

Picture
Photo by NASA on Unsplash
Our sense of being part of social groups is no longer based on belonging to fixed places but increasingly about belonging to communicative networks. As a consequence, people tend to suffer less from nostalgia, the sense of loss of one’s own relationship with ‘sacred’ places like home, and familiar territory. “So, the use of the mobile phone ends up by reinforcing profane space, constructing a space without addresses, without precise localizations, playing down the specifically geographical and anagraphical aspect. Last of all, the use of the telephone, and especially of the mobile phone, ends up by attenuating the social inertia given by the home‘s being immobile in space, to the point that the mobile phone in itself becomes a true mobile home” (Fortunati, 2002).
We are witnessing a paradigm shift from sedentariness to neo-nomadism, from solids to micro-interalities (微細間性). Sedentary people are defined by definability itself. They live within structures or relatively stable and predictable interalities.  Neonomads are shape-shifters and their life is characterized by continuous modulations and constant adaptation to the shifting codes that bear upon their mode of being. The interalities they face are fluid, if not gaseous. …Everything feels like a sand dune, a swarm of bees, a flock of birds, or a mosaic that transmutes into a different pattern in the next moment when all the pieces flip, creating a new configuration of interalities...A boon or a bane, the return of interality is not our choice. The time is ripe. Humans are environmentally conditioned to be sensitive to constantly shifting interalities. (Peter Zhang)


​[1] ZHANG, Peter. Guest Editorial: Interality and Us. Canadian Journal of Communication, [S.l.], v. 41, n. 3, july 2016. ISSN 1499-6642. Available at: <https://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/3189/3250>. Date accessed: 02 aug. 2020. doi:https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.2016v41n3a3189.


Both-And

​You might think that process theology is perfectly at home with the new-nomadism, and in some respects this is true.  The very word “process” can suggest a mindset which has no fixed address and is free to roam in many locales, enjoying multiple kinds of virtual communities made possible through Zoom and the smart phone.  Being “from” a geographical location becomes much less important than being "with" others through virtual connections and communicative networks.   And the word “process” can likewise suggest a kind of subjectivity that does not rest in a fixed identity, but rather is able to shift shapes from moment-to-moment, relative to the needs of the circumstances.  This subjectivity is adventurous and free, often in a restless kind of way.  The ideal is to be centered in the adventure itself, like a Buddhist Bodhisattva who forever morphs into whatever identity is needed, always present in the here-and-now.  She or he is a neo-nomad.
​
But it is clear that the internet and screen-culture has its dark side: a side which hides from face-to-face realities, from the intimacies of life in the flesh, by over-absorption in screen-mediated realities.  And certainly there are materials on the internet which foster hatred, violence, indifference, and selfishness.  These are the dark sides of the internet.  Process theology is quite critical of them.

Moreover, there is another aspect of process theology that is not at home with neo-nomadism.  It is that side of process theology which, in the spirit of bioregionalism, encourages us, not simply to think globally and act locally, but to think locally, too.   Along with the Benedictines, this side of process theology encourage a vow of stability, a vow of fidelity to local places, customs, and people.  A compassionate community is unique, specific, geographically defined. It is creative, compassionate, participatory, diverse, inclusive, humane to animals, and good for the earth, with no one left behind.  People in these communities do have identities.  They are Black or Brown, Muslim or Jewish, working class or business class,  Yankees fans or Red Sox fans.  They support these local businesses and local farmers; they frequent these restaurants and these local parks.  They have and enjoy face-to-face friendships and family life.   Compared to the neo-nomads, then, the bioregionalists are sedentary and grounded.  If they have smart phones, they use them but are not entirely at home with the spirit of distractedness they bring with them.   If they must, they are willing to sacrifice wings for roots.

Process theology invites us to have both roots and wings, to be grounded and adventurous.  It imagines the Great You as an encompassing love with no fixed address who shares in the feelings of all with fixed addresses, understanding the need and pleasure for concrete identities.  It sees a richness of experience in the enjoyment of such an identity and group associations, while lamenting the ease with which such identities too often bring with them hardened and overly-solidified boundaries between “us” and “them.”  What is needed, say the process theologians, are ways of living that are both neo-nomadic and, as it were, neo-agricultural.  Ways that understand the world as a community of communities of communities, each with its unique qualities and yet gathered together in a spirit of world loyalty.

The Great You and the Internet

A question emerges.  How can a person grow spiritually in order to partake of these roots and wings.  How can he or she - how can we - navigate relation with virtual reality such that we partake of the best of neo-nomadism, while avoiding its shallowness; and at the same time grow in our sense of place?  How can we grow into world loyalty and local loyalty, perhaps with help from the Great You itself.

​There are now many books discussing the role the internet might play in a person's life.  One of the best is God Online: a Mystic's Guide to the Internet by Bruce Epperly.  I share its Table of Contents below.


God Online: A Mystic's
​Guide to the Internet
​

"We have become cells in a planetary mind, joined by communications technology as well as Divine creativity. Non-local causation manifests itself when we sign into Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and any other social media platform. The impact of our participation in the noosphere, the synergetic planetary mind, can nurture or detract from the well-being of ourselves and persons across the globe. As we use these social media platforms, we need to remember another kind of non-locality, the intricate connectedness of our prayerful spiritual practices. Prayer connects us immediately, positively, and non-locally across the planet and the universe, creating life-enhancing fields of force around those for whom we pray. Prayer awakens the energies of love that can transform cells as well as souls."
​
Epperly, Bruce. God Online: A Mystic’s Guide to the Internet . Anamchara Books. Kindle Edition.
​When we do ordinary things with great love, as Therese of Lisieux counseled, we bring beauty and healing to our companions on the Internet and to the planetary mind. The omnipresent God is as near as the next key stroke, the next post or response to another’s online comment. We need a whole-person spirituality grounded in a sense of the holiness of all creation and reverence for life, despite the conflicts that characterize our world—and given the amount of time most of us spend online, we need to include these activities in our spiritual lives.

Bruce Epperly guides his spiritual Internet manual with the wisdom of the Christian mystical tradition. These insights, both ancient and modern, help us to claim our vocation as God’s companions in healing the world—through the vehicle of social media and other online interactions. Each chapter’s dialogue with a mystic concludes with a spiritual practice that enables us to discover, in the spirit of the patriarch Jacob’s exclamation, that “God is online, and we did not know it.”

Logging On
​
1. The Sacrament of the Present Moment
2. Practicing The Presence of God on the Internet
3. Listening to Your Life
4. Daily Attentiveness
5. Peace Is Every Post
6. Doing Ordinary Things with Great Love
7. Something Beautiful for God
8. Pause, Notice,
9. Prophetic Posting
10.  What is Your Vision for Your Unique and Unrepeatable Life?

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Open Horizons