“Stat crux dum volvitur orbis”

After viewing a segment of the documentary “Into Great Silence” in class today, I did some brief research on the Carthusian Order of Monks in order to gain a deeper understanding of its foundation. One thing that caught my attention during my browsing was their motto, “Stat crux dum volvitur orbis”, which translates as “The Cross is steady while the world is turning.” In various ways, the ideology of this religious order parallels Borgmann’s argument against the radical transformation or perhaps, degradation of the individual human experience as spurred by the modern technological era.

Compared to the blurred image of fast-paced streets and sidewalks in cities that never seem to sleep, the Carthusian Monks appear to be living at a standstill. One of the images from the film that lingers in my mind is the elderly monk’s hand simply resting on the coarse white fabric for a few moments before he continues each new step of the folding and cutting process. I think that individuals in technologically advanced societies have lost the ability to simply pause from the pattern of their hectic lives and feel the textures of life that surround them. We do not even really stop to appreciate the world in the present moment with our own eyes; indeed, the vast majority of individuals, myself included, tend to view the environment through technology in the form of a camera, capture it, transfer it to our computers, and store it in the recesses of an artificial memory to view later.

People today not only operate in constant motion but also in constant communication through texting, Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of social networking. I have heard various people assert that they cannot go ten minutes throughout the average day without texting someone. From the perspective of a local farm girl that would have to grab a feed bucket and walk up to the field at the top of the ridge to get consistent reception, dependence on a cell phone in the home environment is an anomaly to me. It seems that this desperate need for attention from the distant masses has led to a depreciation of the internal dialogue or even dialogue with nature that contributes to self-discovery and the formation of one’s personal ideology. We spend so much time trying to be heard that we often forget to listen.