Categories: uncategorized
Date: 19 April 2010 08:21:46
Last night I got a call from my dad, who is currently in the US, telling me where he'd got up to in changing his travel plans. Without saying so directly the subtext of the call was, "don't worry, and we're now at a stage where you can stop texting every time they extend the restrictions". Basically he was due to go from a to b and then b to c four days later, he is now trying to sort out buying an affordable ticket from a to c without coming back to the UK, (which was b), for a few days. His main problem yesterday appeared to be that they were only willing to accept credit cards issued in the US or Canada to buy the ticket. Still he will be ok, this is a guy who hitch hiked around Europe in the 60's and is quite happy to think outside the box.
His story is one of several I know. There is the husband who commutes on a weekly basis between countries who is stuck in the country he works in, the couple who went for a fews days away leaving their teenage daughter who now can't get back, the family who went for an Easter holiday in Spain who are now stuck there for an extra week and those are just the ones that come easily to mind. In each case technology is allowing people to let others know what is happening.
This whole thing is showing us both the extents and the limits of globalisation and technological change in the late modern age. It is also showing us how we are part of webs, and networks of life. Networks and webs that now stretch internationally. Within these situations people are being supported on both local and international levels.
The wibsite is another late modern web which has its extents and limits. On one level it is an extension of what church has always been...a place for people to fellowship and share their everyday joys and sorrows, to be supported by others who pray for them and so forth. It is also a place where we share abit about our different experiences of "traditional church" and in the past it's been a place where people have supported each other whilst "out of" or "on the edges" of church. It is a place where we learn a bit about different cultures and about bits of "the family" we might not otherwise know. It is a place where people put forward ideas and discuss the issues of the day. Yet it has limitations.
The wibsite is not "church" in any traditional sense or even a online "Fresh Expression". There is normally an element of worship missing, although I can think of two Catholic and Orthodox wibloggers who do introduce real elements of worship on here sometimes through their sharing. We may find ourselves supported in very real senses by the people on here but they cannot replace having a traditional "home". This "traditional home" can be a "church" or it might be some local networking of people. Fact is, though, we need an on the ground set of people to share with somehow. That may or maynot be in "church" as we know it.