Twitter can be like pornography for the vicious. For reasons I’ll never understand, some people — even some who say they are Christians — enjoy being cruel to people they do not know online. I once read one man say that he can’t figure out the truth about people’s beliefs because it would spoil his fun online. Really?

This Lent, I’m following the advice of a Hindu that I have long admired, the late Eknath Easwaran:

Please do not indulge in unkind words, in negative comments. Criticism, as you know, can only be useful when it is constructive. Comments can only be useful when they are friendly. So even from the point of view of effectiveness, I would suggest that unkind comments add to the problem. Unloving criticism makes situations worse.

Eknath Easwaran, speech in 1979