In one especially illuminating issue of Forbes magazine the whole phenomenon of networks was examined (May 2007). It was a fascinating combination of articles. These networks span every kind of connection imaginable, from the social to technological, and used for either good or evil purposes.

I found one article to be of special interest: Can You Hear Me Now? (176-182) The author explored the downside of what it means to be tethered to our technological devises, confined and controlled by the same tools that were meant to give us freedom. As a paradox, however, we have often become more disconnected and enslaved.

I am one of those who depends upon the electronic domain. I can be reached via e-mail or texting about some important decision. I can field an emergency. When the car breaks down, I can call for help. I can have a meeting anywhere I happen to be because I am the office.

But there is a problem with this. When, in all this connectivity, am I able to make myself fully available, undistracted, and entirely present to the place and persons of the moment? How can our minds rest, contemplate and even dream when we’re always being beeped? How does the temptation to respond immediately to every communiqué form and shape our behavior? Are we more or less anxious because of it?

Right now I am keyboarding these words onto a lap top and will soon e-mail it, remotely, to the place where it will be loaded on another electronic distribution system and end up in your e-mail box or personal communication devise. I had the liberty to compose it when and where I needed to. You will read it at your convenience when you choose to check e-mail. That’s the good part.

The un-good part is if we become psychologically owned by the screen in front of us, so enamored with the technology that we feel we owe it something. That happens.

There is a related question about the unintended consequences of all this for the human community. There is no greater paradox of our time. We are more connected with more people at greater distances, faster and more comprehensively than every before. E-communities form around needs, interests, and movements. Chat rooms are filled. But how does this virtual form of communication and gathering create or not create abiding community?

Some time ago I walked into a restaurant at noon and observed four business people at lunch. At the same moment, all four were on their cell phones talking to someone else. In what sense could you say that those four people were having lunch together? Wouldn’t it be closer to the truth to say that they were eating in the same space, but having lunch with someone else?

You may have had the recent experience of attending a professional meeting, organizational gathering or class in which someone in the room was making a presentation, but a huge number of attendees were individually checking their own e-mail through their lap tops or reviewing texts on their Iphones. Bodies were in a room, but minds and other business were elsewhere. I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve done it myself.

The effect of all this is subtle, but real. Self-esteem comes to be determined by the number of electronic connections at one’s disposal or how available one might be through a networking page like FaceBook. Our competency is measured by our rapid electronic response quotient. Our importance is conveyed by the number of e-mails we receive in a day.

And what does all this do to a person, and more importantly, to our children? Does it crowd out, for instance, a sense of the solitary life? How is devotion to one person at a time fostered? If prayer requires attentiveness and releasing distractions in order to focus on the One, how do we use rather than be used by our own technology?

We now abide in the season of Advent, the time in the church year when we speak of the great anticipation and expectation for the Christ among us. What if we determined to follow a different course for these days leading up to the Nativity?

Let us learn to turn it off. Except in the case of urgent business, emergencies, and communicating with our closest family members, what if we began to learn to walk away from the electronic domain? What if we decided to not check e-mail before we read the paper, complete another chapter in the book we’re reading, take our walk, talk with family members, shoot hoops with the kids or pray the Lord’s Prayer?

It could be the most important form of fasting we could ever discover. It would be a spiritual challenge, of course. Fasting from electronic bondage in order to re-claim the expansiveness of mind and spirit may become the new Advent discipline. It may be prerequisite for deep spiritual waiting and creating the conditions in which a new community may be formed and nurtured.

A few years ago we were in a stage of life in which multitudes of teenagers were passing in and out of our doors. Our home was a base camp for a moving ameba of youth culture. One evening we announced an “unplugged” night. The word got out quickly through their network as they talked, called, e-mailed and mostly texted one another. When the night came, we met them at the door with a basket and asked them to turn off and give us every electronic devise on their person. It was hard for most to part with these things, like letting go of a favorite blanket. But that was the rule for the evening, and they all complied. In addition, all computers in the house were turned off in order that they not be tempted.

We asked them to stay downstairs for a while, and when the time was right we invited them upstairs. As the basement creatures came up, they were greeted by darkened lights and lit candles on a table set for dinner. We invited them to gather around and once seated, filled their plates with massive quantities of pasta, salad and bread. They sat there, munching in silence, not quite knowing what to do.

But then, somewhere mid-way through the meal, I asked a very general question about some issue of the day, and bit by bit, they started, yes, having a conversation. And it went on, long after the dessert it went on. We had cleared the table and were ready to head to bed but there they sat, unplugged from technological devises but plugged in to one another. With the candles burning, surrounded by calm and quiet, not needing to go anywhere or compelled to give response to the latest beep, they remained, unhurried.

We thought they would tire of this little unplugged exercise quickly, but no. They couldn’t stay long enough. Thinking back upon this now, I think they somehow discovered the thing we call Sabbath. It’s something we all need to find in the worst kind of way.

Oh, sorry, I’ve got to go. Someone just texted me.