25 Reasons Why Twitter Is Spiritual.

By Frederic A. Brussat at Spirituality & Practice

Twitter, the free platform designed for 140 character posts, is the latest thing in social networking. It’s being promoted as a way of keeping in touch with friends, promoting your services, marketing your products, and enlarging your profile — and just a fun thing to do. But can “twittering” be a spiritual practice? Here are 25 reasons why Twitter is spiritual.

Twitter . . .

1. Challenges us to pay attention to what we are doing, to stay awake and totally alert.
2. Prompts us to focus on the present moment and in doing so we realize all we need is right here, right now.
3. Provides opportunities to connect with others around the world so we can sense how self and world are linked in ever-expanding circles.
4. Inspires us to practice hospitality in a time when too often strangers are feared and the “other” is shunned.
5. Enables us to share our deepest dreams and to encourage others not to lose hope.
6. Prods us to find the divine energy of joy in our daily lives and to share it with others.
7. Invites us to be receptive and to hold an open house in our hearts for new people, ideas, and organizations.
8. Draws out our playfulness and celebrates, in a variety of ways, the holiness of savoring pleasure and the lightness of being.
9. Promotes the art of listening in which we lean toward others in love, realizing that everyone wants to be heard.
10. Allows us to probe on a daily basis the significance of what we are feeling and thinking: it makes meaning makers of us all.
11. Encourages us to see spiritual teachers all around us, however unlikely or unlike us they may be.
12. Facilitates our exploration of the wider world of other cultures and wisdom traditions.
13. Reminds us to share the stories of our lives with other companions on the journey.
14. Illustrates how often when we are looking for one thing we come upon another in a moment of grace.
15. Proves that although we think we are living in a universe, it’s really a ‘pluriverse’ of voices.
16. Shows us why we need to cherish all parts of creation from ants to wolves to the Grand Canyon.
17. Encourages us to spell out all our days with a grammar of gratitude.
18. Elicits our wonder as we see the world moving toward us with a deluge of epiphanies.
19. Taps into the enthusiasm that lights up our lives and spreads it around.
20. Helps us banish boredom when we realize that there is always something new to be seen, felt, or made known.
21. Gives us opportunities to bless others through our affirmations of who they are and what they do.
22. Challenges us to be mindful of every word we write and to honor others as best we can.
23. Provides another space where we can be deeply moved by reverence or a radical respect for all life.
24. Like koans, mantras, and flash prayers, teaches us that brevity can be a path of rich communication.
25. Helps us to relearn the arts of generosity wherein we give to others that which means the most to us.