Cheap office supplies, intercessory prayer, and Gregorian chant while you're on hold

Through a link from The Ironic Catholic, I found the Laser Monks from a Cistercian monastery in Wisconsin. In order to support their needs and raise funds for charitable work, they provide printer and fax supplies such as toner cartridge replacements, etc. General mark-up on ink and toner is generally astronomical, so a more modest profit margin allows the monks to make a comfortable living while serving their customers with lower prices and, as they say, "making e-commerce more human".

The fun started for me when I read the "About Us" page. The story of how their enterprise began is an interesting one, but I completely fell for them when I read the section on building relationships with their customers. A sampling:

• We try to make e-commerce more human through personal and truly caring customer service, that reflects our 900-year tradition of hospitality.
• The LaserMonks website offers an invitation for Prayer Requests.
• Thoughtful phrases and quotations are provided that encourage a moment of reflection and growth in the midst of a busy day.
• Handwritten notes of thanks and encouragement from the monks are included in some of our shipments and in occasional correspondence with our customers.
• Our telephone service and auto-attendant are designed to be cheerful, encouraging and thankful, even including our own Cistercian Gregorian Chant for any moments that one must be on Hold.

How can you top the chance to participate in a good work, save money on things you need to buy anyway, and perhaps get a handwritten note from Fr. Bernard?

P.S. The site includes a directory with links to other monastery-made products. It will be my one-stop shop for Monastery Mustard and Trappistine Creamy Caramels from now on.

Not your mom's Psaltery - it's yo' mama's

The Anchoress has a (get this) Hasidic rap version (well, take off) of Psalm 137 embedded from YouTube. Just goes to show you, eternal truths have eternal applicability.

Link.

Friday quotation

A collection of the great G.K. Chesterton for your pleasure.

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."

"The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice."

"The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog."

"Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere."

"I regard golf as an expensive way of playing marbles."

"Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another."

"Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair."

Thanks to The Ironic Catholic for the meme idea.

Go ye unto the world and tweet the gospel

Cardinal Sean Brady, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, was present at the Sunday unveiling of a statue in honor of Fr. Patrick Peyton, a sunny, brogue-filled Irishman who was remarkably successful in the 1940s at encouraging the use of the media to promote faith and devotion to the Rosary.

Cardinal Brady's remarks are all over the internet today because of their direct applicability to this very medium.

“Fr Peyton had a great gift for using the most up-to-date means of social communication. He was pioneering in his use of television to communicate the gospel and the power of prayer through the rosary,” said Cardinal Brady.

“He attracted the support of many famous film stars along the way. I am sure if there had been mobile phones in his day, Fr Peyton would have been big into texting and Twitter. He would rejoice in the power of the internet and e-mail to join people together in prayerful solidarity instantaneously and across the world.”

This is aligned with the direction my thinking has been going. I am a heavy user of various social-connection tools for my work, and I give a lot of consideration to the ways various modes can be applied to businesses and organizations to help them be effective. I've also observed how one of the indirect effects of this involvement is, frankly, that I'm in touch with exponentially more people than I used to be without a proportional cost in extra effort and time.

This has allowed me to observe and participate in many opportunities for either explicit sharing of the gospel or simply doing what God wants me to do -- showing love and concern to the people he's created as they cross my path. Though the utilitarian measurable benefits aren't yet ready to harvest, I firmly believe that if wisely incorporated, Twitter, Facebook, Plurk, Second Life and who-knows-what-else can be successfully used in service of God's kingdom.

What do you think?

I will only tell you this if you promise not to make a big deal about it

It's my birthday. Okay, hush now.

I'm telling you this because I have to share with you a poem a friend posted on my Facebook wall. I'm charmed.

Happy Birthday, Roz Mackraz Dieterich

Let's hear some applause for the Wizard of Roz!
(Those Zs in her name merely add to her fame;
on Facebook or Twitter,
girl's handle's got glitter.)

What I'm trying to say
in a memorable way
is that this one's a
summa cum laude.

Okay, how much fun is that?

Thanks to Kathryn Dearing, poet extraordinaire.