St. Anthony & the Ancient ‘Search Engine’

The Process of Mindful Discovery VS. the Results of Mindless Digital Culture

Today, when something needs to be found, known, recovered, discovered, etc., a common practice is to Google it (if it’s mere information). Or ping it (if it’s a device).

But close your eyes and imagine a time far, far into the past (like, 30 years ago): Computerized search is in its infancy, there’s no “AI” (which is really hyperrationalism, anyway, not human intelligence), and “smart” devices & GPS are still largely unknown to pop culture.

What would you do? Try to find an encyclopedia? Go to a library? Carry foldout paper maps and written directions? Retrace your steps as best you could to find that lost object? Ask a real person for help?

Pepperidge Farm remembers …

I lived through and recall the 1990s (and 1980s), and I’ve done all of those. As archaic as those sound to modern ears, they all got the job done, if you knew how to use them.

You basically embarked on a journey, a process of engaging with information sources to learn things. Eventually, you reached your goal, or realized your process wasn’t properly calibrated to your hoped-for answer. Maybe you actually preferred the alternate destination, after getting there. Perhaps you found out that not every source is accurate or trustworthy. Either way, you learned something valuable.

The man from Portugal, and finding the unexpected

Fernando Martins de Bulhões was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1195. The day after this Substack article publishes will be 793 years since his death on June 13, 1231, at the age of 36.

Most people today who are familiar with his work know him as Saint Anthony of Padua.

During his short — by today’s standards — lifespan, Anthony accomplished much; and much that he didn’t plan for!

He tried to sail to Morocco with visions of grand martyrdom, but became ill and had to turn back. While attempting to return home, his ship was thrown off course by strong winds and landed in Sicily.

Still a rather quiet, largely unknown Franciscan priest, Anthony traveled to an ordination of Dominicans and Franciscans in 1222, and was surprisingly asked to speak in front of his fellow friars. He initially refused, but was peer-pressured into delivering a short sermon during a meal. The response was so overwhelmingly positive, Anthony was encouraged to give up his contented life as a hermit in order to travel and preach.

Imagine being an introvert thrust into an extrovert’s way of life!

Saint Antony of Padua. Line engraving by M. Pitteri after G. Angeli. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Anthony successfully juggled his preference for solitude with his gifts as a teacher and preacher. He found what many of us find: our most important searches take place in our souls. They can’t be answered for us by others, including by digital tools. There’s no shortcut. It’s about the process.

Meditation: a way to search

Anthony’s legacy, perhaps ironically, is to have his name invoked in short verbal rhymes when a person has lost something:

Dear St. Anthony, please come around.
Something is lost, and it cannot be found.

Prayers that become little more than spellcasting aren’t what Anthony modeled for people, nor is that the kind of faith he helped others discover in their lives.

Anthony knew the value of quiet time and introspection, and the devotion involved in real growth. Anthony’s life wasn’t easy. But he respected the journey, even when he got diverted from what he thought he wanted.

In my own life, I’ve developed a fondness for meditative prayer. It’s time-consuming and a long-term commitment for me. It rarely involves easy answers or epiphanies. It’s the type of habit you develop only if you see searching as an activity to be embraced, rather than an on-demand result to be delivered.

It has taught me to subjugate my natural control-freak tendency (a pathological trait that gets in the way of both Christianity and anarchism).

And my love of meditative prayer motivated me to structure my short book, Good Neighbor, Bad Citizen (Amazon, B&N, Lulu) as a meditative aid (though it’s not required to approach the book this way in order to enjoy it).

Modern tools can be wonderful. But a fixation on low-effort answers being fed to us — with the expectation that we will automatically accept them! — is a type of idolatry and a type of technocratic tyranny.

Genuine Christians and genuine anarchists/voluntarists learn how to use tools without the tools taking over and using us!

And the deepest searches we’ll make in life don’t have on-demand, digital solutions.

Perhaps we can tweak the trite couplet cited earlier:

Dear St. Anthony, help me exult
The work of the search, not just the result.

A digital prayer card I made for this new, short meditation. Feel free to share it!

Search you mind … for a message to leave in the Comments section!

Had you heard of St. Anthony of Padua before reading this article? What are your impressions of his life?

What tradeoffs do you see in rapid answers from digital tools?

Do you meditate? Would you like to try? Do you have any favorite meditative practices (a quiet setting you like to go to, a routine you use, an approach that gets your mind ready for the challenge, etc.)?

Do you sometimes use meditative and/or prayer aids that help guide your efforts?

Anything else interest you about today’s themes?

You’re always welcome to share your thoughts in the Comments!