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I read Amy Wellborn's article on The Hack and applying it to social media shenanigans of today. I know dozens of professional ministers that are hanging a question mark on everything now. Walk with me through the pain!

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• The Hazards of Online Faith-Writing | Church Life Journal | University of Notre Dame — . . . . The funny things was, she supposed that none of this would have been necessary if he had just been a plain uncomplicated windbag like the other inspirationists: he could have gone to his grave with his round tones, his relaxed manner and the untroubled face of a child.\n\nBut Bert wasn\u2019t an uncomplicated windbag. He wasn\u2019t even a natural hack. He was conned into it by public request. He wanted to do first-rate work, but he had trouble with it, and he did so much good the other way . . . The worst of it was you couldn\u2019t even blame the Church. The Church hadn\u2019t asked him to write anything, wouldn\u2019t care if he stopped. Every institution kept up a froth of chatter these days; it didn\u2019t much matter who did the actual frothing. A million tons of stupid words had to be manufactured by somebody; but getting mad at those was like getting mad at New Jersey, as Bert used to say.\n\nIt is uncanny, isn\u2019t it? . . . A million tons of stupid words had to be manufactured by somebody.\n\nOnly now it is not so much print of course. I am sure almost every Catholic print publication could disappear tomorrow and hardly anyone would care, but what counts is what we are all spewing out online all the time.\n\nThe Hack is perceptive, very funny, a little overly discursive and perhaps disjointed, but still deeply recognizable. It is also a caution to all of us engaged in spiritual communication for any kind of pay including simply exposure, and a caution to all of those who pay to engage with spiritual communicators, even if the payment you are offering is simply your time and attention.\n\nThe caution offered by The Hack is this: that kind of communication and the demands of its audience do not just reflect faith, instead they have the power to shape it, and perhaps not always in a positive way. Bert and his audience are caught in a vicious circle of generating and being comforted by pious platitudes. Bert\u2019s loss of faith is not due to him grappling with and then being bested by existential questions and profound theological mysteries. It is due to him avoiding them, allowing the platitudes and sentiment to dominate his spirit because that is where his energy has gone. Then when that dissipates and disappears, he has nothing left.
• 7 Quick Takes | Charlotte was Both — Consider what you\u2019re being sold these days, even from Catholics. In every way, in every corner, it seems to be about you and your self. We are constantly told that the core of spiritual seeking is to discover who you really are, with gifts \u2018n\u2019 talents at the ready, accept who you really are, accept that God accepts you as you really are, arrange your life around the self you have accepted, be passionate about that self and its potential for greatness, find a church community that accepts you as you really are, and then get upset if you feel that you\u2019re not being accepted as you really are. Lather, rinse, repeat.\n\n