Ed Cyzewski - Reconnect: Spiritual Restoration from Digital Distraction

What I love most about this book is that Ed Cyzewski is not presenting us with a litany of information and then requiring us to ditch our cell phones at the side of the road and leave our technological society behind. What hes asking us to do is open our eyes. Open our eyes to what social media is doing to our young people. Open our eyes to what screens are doing to us. And rememberremember that true discipleship, true relationship, and true spiritual formation are found in the quiet places, the still places, the merciful places.

SHAWN SMUCKER , author of Once We Were Strangers

I am among the blip-sized generation who eagerly anticipated being assigned an email address ending in .eduthe key to the magical world of Facebook in the early 2000s. Social media has been a continual source of entertainment and education for me, and it wasnt until 2016 that I began to question the amount of time I was spending on these siteslet alone why I was spending so much time on them. Ed Cyzewski (whom, ironically, I met through Facebook) has been an invaluably wise guide as Ive started down the path of being intentional in my engagement with social media. Reconnect is a deeply practical, beautifully written invitation to consider anew how best to cultivate a life of connection to God and neighbor.

MEGAN WESTRA , pastor and author of Born Again and Again

Ed Cyzewski winsomely demonstrates how our uncritical use and overuse of digital media malforms us. In his beautiful description, it blinds us to the brilliance of God. I, for one, dont want to blind myself to Gods brilliance, to Gods life. Here, Cyzewski is the best kind of guide; he practices what he preaches. Whats more, he doesnt leave us stranded by merely pointing out the wrong. He leads the way by practically showing us how to make things right with God, ourselves, and the world. This is all serious businessand this book is sorely needed in this momentfor the sake of our individual and collective soul!

MARLENA GRAVES , author of The Way Up Is Down

As an author and public speaker, I am constantly wondering how to engage with social media and the people around me in a healthier way. Ed Cyzewskis book, which so wonderfully displays the kindness that he embodies every day, offers us an invitation to lean into our technological world while staying tethered to discipline and simplicity through soul work and contemplative spirituality. If you desire to engage with the world but dont want to be constantly distracted by it, this is a beautiful book with important insights for all of us.

KAITLIN CURTICE , author of Glory Happening

Ed Cyzewski is a deep soul, making sense of living in the modern world. In this book, he takes on the digital tsunami that has swamped our lives and the spiritual damage it creates. Thankfully, Ed guides us in the way out. He shows us how to remain rooted in what matters most, even when we must be clicking and swiping. His distinction between digital and spiritual formation alone is a game changer. Highly recommended.

BRADLEY WRIGHT , professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut

Herald Press

PO Box 866, Harrisonburg, Virginia 22803

www.HeraldPress.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Cyzewski, Ed, 1979- author.

Title: Reconnect : spiritual restoration from digital distraction / Ed Cyzewski.

Description: Harrisonburg, Virginia : Herald Press, 2020. | Includes

bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019040482 (print) | LCCN 2019040483 (ebook) | ISBN

9781513806358 (paperback) | ISBN 9781513806365 (hardcover) | ISBN

9781513806372 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: SpiritualityChristianity. | Spiritual lifeChristianity.

| TechnologyReligious aspectsChristianity. | Social mediaReligious

aspectsChristianity.

Classification: LCC BV4501.3 .C995 2020 (print) | LCC BV4501.3 (ebook)

| DDC 261.5/2--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019040482

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019040483

RECONNECT

2020 by Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia 22803. 800-245-7894.

All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019040482

International Standard Book Number: 978-1-5138-0635-8 (paperback);
978-1-5138-0636-5 (hardcover); 978-1-5138-0637-2 (ebook)

Printed in United States of America

Cover and interior design by Merrill Miller

Cover image adapted from Scully/Getty Images

All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form, by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the copyright owners.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture text is quoted, with permission, from the New Revised Standard Version , 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America.

24 23 22 21 2010 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

FOREWORD

I n September of 2013, I walked away from the bottle. Itd been a long season of over-imbibing, of drowning the acute pain of a sick child in too much gin. But in a Methodist church lobby in Austin, Texas, the Epiphany found me, shook me awake, and told me it was time to face the world undrunk. And face the world undrunk I did, at least for a season.

Weeks passed. Then a month. Then another. A year was in the rearview mirror, and the scent of juniper berries and quinine was little more than a faint memory wafting across my hippocampus. It was the anniversary of my liquor-free life. Congratulations to me. Right?

In that long stretch of those teetotaling months, a sort of pride set in. I wasnt drinking to dull the pain anymore, and Id rediscovered the divine love that reordered my thirsts. But did that mean I was full-on sober? If I was, how come I seemed to turn to the unholy trinity of distractionFacebook, Twitter, Netflixat the end of any anxious day? Why was I so often distracted from the voice of God in the real world around me?

Was it possible that I was digitally drunk? Yes, indeed.

Is it possible I still am? Perhaps, but dont tell my priest.

We live in the age of technological heroin, a day where the pushers in Silicon Valley have created digital drugs as potent as any narcotic. Social mediaits equal parts feast, famine, fear, ego, and spectacular debacle. The content (at least the non-advertisement content) and means of delivery are designed to chemically hook our brains. You know this to be true. Dont you? No matter how much you swear off it, dont you always end up back on the social media sauce? I do. Why? Because the tech giants know their craft. They know how one notification grabs attention, how it hooks us, how it sets the brain on fire, how it makes a simple promise: This tweet, this post, this like brings the fix .

Ive given into this fix over the years, and if theres anything I can say with some certainty, its this: There have been seasons where Ive been spiritually formed more by social media than by the Spirit of divine love. Drunk on social media, Ive fallen headlong into worthless arguments, idiotic debates, and scorching political dumpster fires. Ive been blocked by a Christian money guru who reckoned me a troll (rightly, perhaps) because I called him a prosperity theologian. (Dave, if youre reading this, Im sorry.) Ive spent countless hours scrolling the feed when I could have been sitting in silence and solitude. Ive given countless hours to a medium that cant give me the thing I need most: connection with divine love.