iPods

I don't have an iPod. Not yet anyway. But this made me laugh.

Blogs and relationships II

I've been continuing to think about the way that blogs change relationships. I must say that I do think there is something different about experiencing community "in the flesh" that blogs just can't replace.

Example: I used to go to a homegroup where there was a person who would drive me crazy almost every week. He would ramble on saying something I didn't understand, or wander off the topic, or make generalisations I didn't agree with, or tell the same story again and again and again. I got frustrated, bored, annoyed, and confused.

If he had been a fellow blogger, I would probably have stopped reading his posts long ago; but going to the same group as him meant I had to listen to him week after week. And you know, after a few months of this, I started to realise something: this person is really different to me. And really different to anyone else I know. He's the only person I know who's been homeless and a drug addict, who's a veteran of war and of two failed marriages, and who has a serious psychiatric disorder. And I could learn something from him because of that. I could listen to his random ramblings and his repetitive stories and realise that they're often just as valuable and as honest as any carefully thought out, well articulated contribution I might have. I learnt a little bit more humility. I learnt to be a little bit less elitist. I learnt to listen harder and to value what I heard more.

Of course, it might be perfectly possible to learn all the same lessons in the blogging world. But I guess blogs give you complete control over what you read. You don't have to listen to anyone else if you don't want to. You don't have to listen to their stories and their ideas, and you don't have to listen to their comments about your stories and your ideas. This is definitely possible in an "in-the-flesh" community, but I think it's harder.

The challenge is to combine blogs' freedom to be honest and to express dissenting opinions with in-the-flesh community. But I think it's possible! And for that reason, I hope that this blog is always only part of my experience of Christian community - a valuable part, definitely, but not the whole of it.

Questions...

Brodie at View from the Basement is asking a similar question to the one I'm interested in:

So I guess the question is, ‘is it just the context for how we tell our stories & communicate with each other’ that is changing or is there a more fundamental change taking place?

I used to go to a church in Melbourne where they were starting an adult catechumenate that I really wanted to participate in. When I moved to the UK, I (half seriously) asked our minister if I could continue participating via correspondence. His answer was interesting - he said no because it's too important to experience community "in the flesh" - incarnate. I am wondering if the same problem arises with communication via blogs. I guess it's a little different because blogs aren't trying to replace church communities...

It will be interesting to see how this develops, both in my experience and in the wider blogging world over the coming years.

Cafes

Today I was in a cafe and there was advertising on the tabletop! I hope this is not a growing trend, otherwise there will soon be nowhere to escape...

I was also somewhat amused (in a sad kind of way) at the sign saying "Customise your drink" over the sugar/sweetner/cocoa shaker/cinnamon shaker/plastic spoon station. It's ironic how chain cafes (yes it was a chain - choices in London are limited!) tell you that they're all for customising your drink so that it's unique and special, while simultaneously homogenising the cafe market so that everywhere is the same as everywhere else.

Mont Saint Michel

Last week I was in Brittany, and despite not being a Roman Catholic and not speaking French, I went to Mass at Mont Saint Michel. The whole place felt like something out of a dream. The church was freezing cold, and you could see people's breath merging with the incense. The austere soaring church, with its great grey stone pillars, seemed to be carved out of the bones of the earth, and the disembodied voices singing words I could not understand moved me to tears. I am still strangely comforted by the knowledge that there are 12 people there who, day in and day out, hold up the world in prayer.

Then, of course, I walked back out to the hordes of tourists and ridiculously tacky postcards (almost worth buying for their tackiness) and overpriced fast food (no McDonald's, but almost as bad). I could understand how Jesus felt when he overturned the tables at the Temple: "Is it not written: 'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it 'a den of robbers'."

I wondered how the Abbey's community of monks feel about the rampant commercial exploitation of the tourists who pass through the village. I wondered how they feel about those who visit the Abbey to admire its architecture and marvel at its engineering and soak up its history, but not to acknowledge or participate in its spiritual life. I wondered how they feel about those of us who attended the Mass. And I wondered how I felt about my visit. Often I'm not sure if I go to such places as a tourist or a pilgrim - or as something in between, a sort of 'spiritual tourist', and if the latter, whether I'm really just there for some kind of spiritual "experience". There doesn't seem to be an easy answer...

T.S. Eliot

I have a book of T.S. Eliot's poetry out of the library at the moment, and I've sat down with it a few times to try to understand (in an experiential kind of way) why he is considered such a great poet. Thus far, I've experienced mainly frustration - I know there's something going on here, but I can't quite figure out what. There are parts that resonate:

...music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.
[The Dry Salvages]

You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the mind praying, or the sound of the voice praying.
[Little Gidding]

But there are also large parts where I'm not quite sure what's going on, and where it all just seems a mass of words. Can anyone suggest a good introduction to his work that might help me come to grips with it?

Blogs and relationships

I am interested in discovering how blogs change the way people relate to each other. It feels strange to direct my thoughts to 'the world out there' rather than to a specific individual or group. I am slightly uncomfortable with the idea of relating to people through a computer screen - without knowing your names or faces, without knowing anything about you, really.

Are friendships that develop via this means of interacting different to other friendships? Is it easier to be vulnerable given the anonymity of a blog or comment? Is it harder to feel like you really know someone because of the selectivity, lack of immediacy, lack of specificity?

I guess I'm afraid that, unless I meet with people 'in the flesh', I won't be Christ to them and they won't be Christ to me. After all, the Incarnation was about God becoming flesh in all its messy glory, not becoming words on a screen (we had that already, more or less).