Spectrum of Spirit: A Digital Sanctuary for Spiritual Discourse and Community

In my NIV translation, I could not find a specific mention of a saint in the Hebrew Bible. A saint is primarily used in Christian discourse but one of the least exclusive definitions is a person eminent for piety or virtue¹. I took a class during my undergraduate experience where my professor taught a class about the Roman Empire’s use of coins as a marketing tool, almost like our modern day usage of social media. I wonder what impact social media would’ve made in the time of the formation of religions, if the Israelites had Instagram, if Jesus had X, if Buddha had Tik Tok, etc. I wonder if digital record keeping would have transformed the understanding of religious dogma and doctrine today. I wonder how certain accounts or posts would have been seen as heretical or even erased from history and left in some ancient technology cloud. I wonder if this would change society’s perspective on wisdom and what is sacred or secular. Maybe none of these things would change, maybe all of them would, but I find the brain exercise worth my time this week.

I first want to shoutout the docuseries, #Cybersleuths: The Idaho Murders. On a flight I took during this year, I watched the series and was inspired by people’s desire to help whatever took place in an open investigation of a crime, in this case the Idaho Murders of four college students. The amount of draw these influencers had both positive and negative effects on the true crime community depending on who you ask. I am very interested in the growth of the true crime community and wish this growth would become apparent in the spiritual discourse community. With my specific interest in spirituality and culture, I wonder how our digital age can bring forth a new wave of “spiritual detectives”, people who excavate online platforms to uncover, preserve, and expose threads in the tapestry of spiritual traditions.

Digital Saints

I recently had a discussion with one of the students in my dorm about gospels that were not included in the Bible. He presented the case that these gospels were not in alignment with the main themes of the rest of the text and that is why they were excluded from the collection of texts. I don’t spend much time if any at all on social media, but I would like to believe this version of exclusion comes to play in certain trends. #BlackLivesMatter and #MaskOn with their respective counterparts are two examples that come to mind, stories where one hashtag can lead to a bias in the information that one can gain. I believe speeches, writings, and rituals that religious figures may or may not have shared can still be valuable in revealing the complexity of a personal spiritual experience.

I believe James and Justin from Stay Spiritual, Sahara Rose, and Sadhguru are a few examples of all the people who invite guests to contribute to their discussions and investigate difficult questions proposed to them. Stay Spiritual explores faith narratives, revealing lesser-known stories, and connecting ancient traditions to modern-day practices. Sahara Rose builds her community providing spiritual support and facilitates discussion as people wrestle with religious instruction and societal issues. Sadhguru creates daily content, in blogs, podcasts, and Youtube videos to explain his wise ideas and tell inspirational stories. These discussions from Digital Faith Advocates have been the backbones of my blogs and they have been a part of curating communities looking for spiritual guidance.

The subjects I have talked about in my blogs have spanned from justice, healing, and especially gratitude and I wouldn’t have had any idea where to start if it wasn’t for the influencers mentioned above. I believe their ability to digest information and express their understanding has inspired me and their other listeners to have these conversations with those we trust. The digital saints’ discussions have inspired me to continue to write, to try to connect the threads of religious traditions across the globe, and to hope to create a community who values spiritual and cultural dialogue inspired by art.

Faithful Saints

Captions and subtitles are life savers for someone like me, as I like to think of myself as an analytical and investigative person. I believe I engage with a story or an idea better when I can follow along with the words told in a video or podcast, especially when the director or the speaker makes the content in a different language. The videos Stay Spiritual reacts to add filters and unique editing to express the faith story in a way that communicates their message while also inviting the viewer into their own experience. I believe the combination of the digital manufacturing, the filters, captions, and edits, give what was once a verbal or written text, a new theological meaning, adding values to sacred rituals.

I believe The BoldBrush Show, one of the podcasts I listen to for this blog to learn more about artistic expression in the business setting, but doesn’t intentionally touch on spirituality, does convey a new perspective on spiritual themes. This week, The BoldBrush Show, has a guest speaker where the theme of the conversation surrounds the idea of desire being the gift when making and trying to sell your art. I believe in a lot of aspects of life, when trying to pursue one’s desires, it requires different versions of leaps of faith and the use of one’s gifts to be the best version of yourself. I say this to say, I believe there is plenty of value in being able to find spiritual encouragement and significance in all forms of digital messaging, not just religious content.

I have found plenty of spiritual communities on Reddit and have been trying to grow my own community there as well. I imagine platforms like Instagram, X, and Tik Tok, have even more interest in conversations surrounding being your best self and the mystery of life, purpose and meaning. Sticking strictly to my experience on Reddit, I have come across posts where people anonymously confess their deepest concerns or feelings of shame towards their life or someone else’s life. Additionally, I have found communities that discuss the values of worship, whether to themselves or something they view as higher than themself. Reddit users also share their own testimonies of how they have come to their beliefs and convictions, even though I think there are always steps that could be taken towards harmony. Lastly, I have engaged in quite a few debates with other users on theological and spiritual discussions of the intentions and meanings of religious texts that have been discussed for centuries. I believe social media users, faithful saints, can use their technology to express themselves authentically, giving a voice to their spirit and adding to the vast spectrum of spiritual life.

Ethical Saints

I believe cultural appropriation is a common concern when people try new aspects of a different culture. Addition to my Roman coins class, I took a class exploring the rules and tension in museums around the content they showcase and the content they hold in storage. Recently a Lithuanian woman asked me if it was cultural appropriation to wear a bonnet for sleepwear. I find the balance of building off one’s own culture, with benefitting from another culture, to be a very difficult line that I am still wrestling with. However you may feel about this line, I believe it is valuable to first acknowledge that it exists, seeing the issues that could come if arrogance leads the conversation. I would encourage anyone in a similar predicament to engage the situation from a stance of questioning, asking the others you are with if you have their consent to wear/use the item. If the conversation becomes hostile before you ask for consent, I recommend asking the group or individual how they interpret you wearing/using the item you are using. With our globalized world, I find the conversation around preservation to grow more and more complex, especially around preserving culture.

I am a strong believer that heritage has propelled the future. I believe the cultural and religious heritage of an individual within a community has given the individual some sort of wisdom that fits the guidelines of the community. I believe the values communities have taught through their rituals had the purpose of adding richness to the individual’s personal and spiritual life. I believe these rituals were meant to ingrain an accessible grounding for the person to connect to a part of their identity. Today, I believe we have the ability to recover what has been lost to history, intentionally and unintentionally, and expose stories with rich perspectives. I believe threads on X can solidify the sacredness of historical figures, ancient landscapes, and classical artifacts. I believe live digital interaction has the potential to bring global consciousness and understanding of human institutions to help each other become the best version of ourselves.

This is where I believe Spiritual Archivists can benefit our society for the better. I believe Spiritual Archivists can contribute to saving the misunderstood cultures texts, oral histories, and rituals that have been demonized in our world, organizing and collaborating to display the complexity of the human’s sacred artifacts and teachings. If carefully attended to, I believe Spiritual Archivists have the ability to give meaning to what was misrepresented in modern day cultures, avoiding appropriation and distortion of what was originally performed by a culture’s practitioners. I believe the intentional digital archives can provide a foundation for interfaith dialogue, connecting cultures across the globe through art, music and culture; possibly bridging one’s own application of their contemporary spirituality to traditional practices of faith. I believe these ethical saints have the power to reveal cultures that have disappeared due to our world’s oppressive systems.

Call to Saints

Digitize saints. Make the most of the moment before it leaves. Stir up the footprints. Consider faith with your spirit. Create your own ethics. Call your own memes. Find the origins of our online world. Eternalize your conversations. Echo what you feel. Uncover the mystery of the sacred. Share your twin. Discover your soul. Become energy. Advocate and dance.

Bibliography

1. “Definition of SAINT,” Merriam-Webster: America’s Most Trusted Dictionary, last modified May 1, 2024, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/saint. ↩︎