Getting #Married and Tapping into Social Media

"Would you review my new book, Getting #Married: Using Social Media to Celebrate the Sacred?"

I was too curious to say no when the request came into my inbox.

For one thing, I think very highly of Meredith Gould, who is an author, a blogger, and one of my favorite people to follow on Twitter.

For another, when you put both "social media" and "sacred" in the subtitle, it makes for irresistibility as far as I'm concerned.

Social media...that force which keeps me connected...and isolated, if I let it. Social media...that interruption that reminds me of the weather, my frustrations, and so many blessings. Social media...that mixed bag that enhances my life even as it threatens to take over.

I've come to realize, in the years since I've been embedded online, that I have an addictive personality. These new tools can integrate themselves into the core of every part of my life--and not in a good way--if I let them.

While the concept of this book did make me raise my eyebrows, t it also appealed to the deeply ingrained geek within me.

Gould shares her experience of using various social media outlets to celebrate her own wedding and gives us all a glimpse of yet another good way to use these tools. She doesn't overstep and suggest tweeting every intimate detail; rather, she gives you clear-cut methods and ideas for keeping your friends and family members involved in a way that hasn't ever been easily possible before.

Often, when we hear about New Evangelization, we think big, challenging, life-changing. Gould offers us a real-life way to share a sacrament with those who can't be physically present.

Nowhere does she suggest that being physically present is less than--or trumped by--those who are only virtually present. Instead, she offers suggestions for making the community we've each experienced in our online world something real and tangible, something we can touch and remember later.

This, indeed, is the heart of the New Evangelization! Kudos to Gould for her courage in sharing this in such a thought-provoking and highly applicable way!