Page 149 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

138 Reception of religion and media

there . . . here it is,” she says. The authenticity of the spirituality she has
found is then in part in its immediacy and accessibility. This is, again, a
central element to the new “seeking” or “questing” sensibility we have been
discussing in these pages. The project of meaning-making is about the “self,”
and, in the case of children, about helping them refine and develop their own
“selves” and their own ideas. Parents should in a sense “step aside” and not
make their imposition of rules and explanations the deciding factor; to
Priscilla, children should be guided to discover their own true selves instead.
Priscilla, then, presents a narrative of self around children and spiritu-
ality that is rooted in distinctions between the protected, perfectable space
of the home and the outside world on the one hand and between the
authentic and salient spirituality she is striving to craft based on Buddhism
and the spirituality proposed by traditional religions such as her childhood
Catholicism on the other. Germane to our task here, she and Butch further
define and negotiate these distinctions in part by means of media. In
Priscilla’s case, this comes through in a discussion of her online activities.
Interestingly, she sees Internet and Web activities as relatively unproblem-
atic, unlike television.

Priscilla: There are a few websites that I go to now and then and one of
them actually is a spiritual site. It is someone named Cealo. He has
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come to town a few times. I have seen him twice. He is a monk. I
guess he is Buddhist but he breaks some of the rules sometimes. Like,
you are not supposed to touch women and he does. His assistant, the
person who travels with him, is a woman. He is from a monastery in
Burma. He was a Japanese businessman. So, he just had a life change.
Interviewer: Have you heard him speak?
Priscilla: Yes, I heard him speak and I had a private session with him.

So, for Priscilla, the Web is an unproblematic context for her own spiritual
exploration (she does not approve of her children going online and the
Castellos do not have a computer at home – she must go online elsewhere).
It is a context that is interconnected with real-life spiritual experience.
Spiritual commodities and resources, such as those offered by Gayuna
Cealo, effectively blur boundaries between the “real” local and personal
life and the “artificial” outside and mediated life. One can move from the
website to an actual encounter with him. This particular Web-based
“ministry” is further interesting in the way it seemingly embodies the kind
of exploratory spirituality that seekers such as Priscilla find attractive and
salient. Buddhist tradition is less important than the authenticity of this
particular monk, and his accessibility through the Internet adds a measure
of connection for her. In response to further exploration by the Interviewer
on her Internet habits, Priscilla describes in a relaxed way her encounters
with this website.