Technology and God

A Liturgical Luddite I may be, but in a wider church context I am the nearest you will find to a techno-geek. I am unusual, as a priest, or indeed as an English Christian, in that I use Twitter, I write a blog and I manage a Facebook page. I know more priests who don't do any of these things than those who do any, let alone all, of them. In the diocese where I minister, I am fortunate that one of our bishops (+Alan, of blogging fame) led the way for Christian bloggers, and was then an early Twit. It made a difference to me about what may be viewed as 'acceptable', and before the example set by Bp Alan, this social media lark would have existed way out of that circle of acceptability in my mind - quite wrongly.

Increasing time is being spent by people interacting with the world around them by way of computer technology. Once, a computer was a Space-Invaders Box or a mainframe in a large building somewhere. Now, we can hold the capacity of those mainframes, hundreds of times multiplied, literally on the tip of our finger. It seems that more and more of the expression of industrialised humanity is to be found through an electronic device of one sort or another. This has to have an impact on all aspects of life, including its spiritual side.

Instinct would lead many Christians to a perceive technology as 'against' God. Technological advance connects people in many ways yet enables that in a profoundly disconnecting way. I can talk (literally or figuratively) to hundreds of people but without leaving the house, if I so chose. This can be viewed favourably or not, though I am now tending towards the positive these days. I am now in touch with a far wider sphere of people than ever before, and people who edify me and improve my life and aid my thinking in many good ways.

I have been musing this for a while now, and with the aid of Twitter and other 'streams of consciousness' have gathered much about the ways that technology and the implicit theologies of our Christian lives are beginning to fuse meaningfully. At a recent gathering called 'Thinking Digital Conference' (not a thing I attended, but followed its Twitter stream, so the next best thing) I saw a great deal about what the possibilities are for that fusion. There will be another gathering, Open Source at Pentecost Festival 2011 that will attend to this very subject. For this blog post, though, a couple of my own thoughts in splendid isolation:

Distinctiveness of Spirituality - A matter that was covered at TDC was, more or less, the possibility of a 'man space' (though not in any religious sense, but it got me thinking). I think that it is possible to talk about distinctiveness of gender spirituality without falling headlong into the debates on ordination and consecration, and to throw the baby out with the bathwater would be sad. The simple fact is, my experience of loving God is rooted entirely and squarely in my own existence as a male of the species. For well over a decade I have felt a very slight need to apologise for being male in the church and whilst I understand why other balances need to made, feel very strongly that our matriarchal church (which it is, at ground level) has left little space for male spirituality. You have Mother's Onion, World Women's Day of Prayer, WATCH - but I cannot name a group purely for men. We just daren't. This is a sad thing, but one that is increasingly superseded by technology where we can 'App' our lives as we wish. Technology allows us such levels of mutual individuality that we can be who we are without impinging on the rights of others to do the same. I love women, women in the church, women running the show if they wish - but I have never once wanted to give up being a man, or to be proud of the spirituality that I have been given. 

Infectiousness of the Gospel - This is very much 'my thing'. I have said here and elsewhere on numerous occasions that Christians are infected with the 'virus' of the Gospel. By any and all means necessary I will communicate that virus as widely as I can, and technology allows that in ways that are still not fully clear. The thing about "mission" that I dislike is how contrived and deliberate it seems to me. It seems, at times, to be exploitative and I don't favour that approach at all. Like a virus, I can no more force a person to become infected of the Gospel that I can of the common cold, with trying among some anti-social behaviours. However, I try to be authentically me (see above for the means), and through blogs, Twitter and Facebook, I seem to attract people to the Gospel without making a specific effort. I yap to all sorts on Twitter under the name @FrDavidCloake, and if I can be normal, fun, humourous, grumpy, angry and all those other things that normal people do under this label, then the world can know that at least this part of the church and its Gospel is not beyond reach in some holy cavern somewhere. 

Accessibility -  A little while ago I wrote an essay on a very narrow little topic that means nothing to almost anyone except me and the essay marker. However, I experimented with technology and its preparation. I had no books on the subject at hand, and I had no real idea what I needed to say, but the internet grants us all such considerable access to every conceivable theology and theologian. I could cite Augustine of Hippo, other Early Fathers in their native languages. I could access any number of versions of the Bible and commentaries (from all centuries) to match them all. I could translate into languages long lost or translate from them. I could find scholarly works that were written mere months ago. I did the essay, and only got brought up for not using physical books. Defence rests, m'lud. I know that millions of Christians (and non) are delving into the internet to edify their seeker experience. Technology allows people to learn and therefore to teach things that until recently were lost in books only to be found in libraries or vicarages. We can teach our children the Gospel in ways I wouldn't have been able to dream of even a decade ago. Beyond this, and through social media specifically, we can discuss our thoughts with spheres of people and indeed experts from all over the world. I have never for a moment thought that God had wanted all his God-stuff to be a privileged secret for the practitioner minority - and now it never will be again.

In general, technology and social media grant many people a 'way in' to theology, praxis, dialogue and even belief and discipleship. That a priest of limited education but of all faith can write words that mean something to people in Angola (this I know to be a fact), then God has a use for me I hadn't even predicted at ordination. This is the tip of a very large iceberg and I would welcome opinion. However, without technology and social media, God's plan for me would never have found life. 

Retrospection and Introspection

Anais Nin once said: "We write to taste life twice; in the moment and in retrospect". I had never thought about blogging in these terms, but now that I have, it feels like a clear statement of the obvious! 

When a sane human sits for the first time behind a computer screen, seeing that it is but a blank box, wondering what on earth to write in that box, they can never begin to predict the effect that those soon-to-be-born words will ever have. After a year and a half, a public minister of religion who blogs is, if I may be direct, a fool if they have no notion of the effect of their words. We write into a world that, for good or ill, takes our words with a certain valency simply because we are vicars, curates, bishops or archdeacons. 

For me, this is a two edged thingy. I look back to see 'me' in my words. Largely, and as I have said before, the words I write are composed mere seconds before I write them down. The idea for a post will never be more than an hour old when it is written (even if published later), so I can only see 'me' in retrospect. I can see when I was having a bad or good week, a tough or easy month, and so on - but only by looking back. I have also learned more about my personal prejudices by reading my own words. I must confess, too, that I actually do enjoy reading my own work. Is that bad?

To assess the effect of our blogs is helpful. When we write posts, we flip little pebbles into the pool of ether in which we and our readers live. To not note where the ripples cast out to is to miss a rare opportunity to note the appetite of the blog-reading world, who are (quite possibly) a representative cross-section of the world we claim to minister to. What I am not about to do is do The Vernacular Curate's Cool Top Ten of My Best Effects - partly because I haven't the time, partly because it isn't important, partly because it is poor blogging in and of itself, and partly because if you were interested, you'd look (and you have the nearest to it in the sidebar to the right of this box)! 

I regularly Google myself as The Vernacular Curate. I do this not to look in a mirror, but to see where my particular ripples have reached - and the results rarely fail to surprise me. If you write a blog and don't do this, I advocate it as a pass time that teaches (sometimes some very hard lessons). In so doing, I have discovered that antisemitism sites have referred to my writing across the world; that I am a regular feature in a recreational website that follows certain blogs (and discusses them in forums I have since discovered); that my post mentioning man-boobs makes me an expert and a cited source; that my appreciation for Lord Jeremy of Clarkson is appreciated elsewhere; that the BBC features my website a few times on its own website (and gives me about a quarter of my traffic now); that I am, apparently, an intellectual liberal; that I have a Wikio ranking; that I am a fixture on a fair selection of health websites; that I have been translated into other languages; that my blog is advertised in places where ladies have their boobs on show; and that for the love of God I am still seeing references after forty-odd Google search pages (when I stopped trawling). This is before any of the kind references made by fellow-bloggers and the ripples that those recommendations cause. Am I glad that my words are in all of those places? No. Did I intend them to be in any of those places? No. 

The overwhelming thing that I have noticed, and of which I am rather proud, is how frequently the words of this daft priest have been published in non-Christian and non-faith websites. I write about just about anything, but as a priest. No apology is ever made for that, or my work, or how I live my life - yet I seem to emerge in the oddest places. To borrow +Alan's notion - with the tens of thousands of hits I have had, it would take me several lifetimes to enter that many people's front-rooms in person, in as many countries. What we priests would give to be able to touch people's life on that scale. And this is only a piffling little venture (as my Wikio raking will tell you). This is where the value of blogging rests - in its effect through the weeks and months (and well-beyond).

Tweet Tweet

I have set to thinking about my Study as a result of reading Alan Crawley's blog posted earlier today. With thanks to the ever insightful, Twurch-hating cartoon-monger Dave Walker, I can offer you all a little insight into the midden that is the place of my work. 

This cartoon represents my study on a very tidy day.

Anyway, to the point Cloake. Crawley (and in no way creepy) was ruminating on the community of the social meejya, and Twitter featured as part of that - he isn't a Twit yet, so has yet to sample the delictations of this electronic art.

I am a recently converted Twit (in the past tense, does a Twit become a ... never mind) and have learned that it is a powerful tool. In conjunction with the Bish (as in +Alan, as in Blog), I learned that Twitter allows the Twit a front seat in just about any situation. The visit of the EDL was a case in point - we knew where they were arriving, which pubs they were parking at and when, and so on - I knew what they knew.

The General Election is another case in point, and more especially the terminal moments of the last government. It's all in the hashtags (#ukelection for example) - find one and follow it, and you are in the middle of what is going on. I sat and filled a whole evening (yes, I am one sad degenerate) with my iTouch - with the journos twittering, members of the parties twittering and those of us following the hashtags sensed the events minutes before they became manifest in the media glare.

So, if you have a penchant for peering through keyholes, standing outside bedroom windows in the dark at night, placing glasses against walls, or tapping the phones of acquiantances, become a Twit. You know you want to.

... then kiss goodbye to family life, friends, nutritional meals, sleep, focus, sense ...... whibble

I ought to say that much good can be done with an immediate communicative device as this - read my earlier post to see just how. Having an 'audible' voice in the middle of just about anything can't be a bad thing, in the right hands!

Liturgy not Archaeology

Christ is Risen, Alleluia!

I have returned from church, tired, elated and convinced of the rightness of my place in this world in which I find myself. 

With me tagging along with Chrism, the Bish (as in +Alan, as in Blog) has Baptised and Confirmed an entire army of willing initiates. From the punters' perspective, it all went like clockwork - though we know differently where we were 'behind the scenes'. Yes, I got to sing my lullaby to a candle, evoking Mother Bee, and bar a couple of vocal twangs, it went ok I think. The Exsultet has always resonated in me at a very deep level, and that doesn't change as the one now charged with intoning it. 

We had the full spectrum of liturgical effect, and the place was 'on fire'. The kids were elated, the adults broad with grin at being Confirmed into this faith of ours, and it was a joy to behold. No, the Bish (as in +Alan, as in Blog) didn't reverence the Gospel Book; no, we had too few chalices out, and yes - I knocked over candle with my cope - but it didn't matter.

I am reminded, tonight, that liturgy is not archaeology. It is a living thing; it is organic. I love the liturgy and I am a formost fan of good ceremonial - but only where it is meaningful in the context to which it finds itself. Yesterday's prostrations only meant something because they appeared shocking to the observers. My candle-lullaby evoked memories of 'home' for a Zimbabwean friend. It is worth something if it means something, and it meant something tonight. There could be an army of those who could argue that it could have been a more polished service, that the serving team could have been regimented to within an inch of their lives, and although the crozier was never held the wrong way - it was a bloody good act of worship, a witness to the Resurrection of Christ and the welcome of new witnesses. 

Would Jesus have cared that I didnt't wear an Apparelled Amice? No, of course not ...

A happy and blessed Easter to you all, Alleluia!

How to make a monk explode

The esteemed Bish (as in +Alan, as in Blog) visited us Aylesbury folkses last night to talk about St. Benedict. During the course of his presentation (which must have been half-decent because I have remembered this much at least), he posed the thorny question which sits as the lifetime conundrum for all clergy ...

...How do you make a monk explode?

He prefaced his answer by explaining that to make a chameleon explode you would have to plonk it on a tartan carpet. Clearly, a monk would not explode if placed upon a tartan ten-gauge - but rather as a result of the following scenario. Imagine the monastary bell tolling, calling the brethren to prayer. Bro Gardener is in the middle of planting a row of best Savoys, and has but one to plonk in the ground. Does he fulfill his community role or does he abandon the poor cabbage in favour of some Psalm-bashing? The correct answer is 'prefer nothing to Jesus', dump the rabbit food - one pureed monk-type.

Uncharacteristically for me, I went from a given presentation and engaged with it at home, and I opened my hitherto un-opened Rule of St. Benedict. It makes so much sense in so many ways and speaks to me of the considerable tension that I embody - the tension that priesthood makes manifest in the correct balance of 'being' and 'doing'.  

I am conspicuously a 'doing' type of fella, and find 'being' tough. So, in order to make this Farv explode, ask him spend time 'being' in Church when a million emails, half a million sermons, a website and a partridge in a pear tree need attending to, and that require him to ride his Dell like a medieval lady of the night. Pop; splat. The church loses and the emails get ...erm, 'follow-up flagged'!

Seriously, there were a couple of things from the presentation that have left their imprint (two more than the whole of my last year at college [my fault, not college's]) - the first being 'prefer nothing to Jesus', and the second '....he should so regulate everything that the strong may desire to carry more, and the weak are not afraid' (referring to the Abbot). With a comprehensive course on Leadership just around the corner and a considerable management experience behind me, I recieve this wisdom in the spirit of an 'Epiphany moment' - bloody marvellous.

Now all I need to do is igonore the copious 'dry-slaps' that naughty monks are required to recieve upon their hides. St. Benedict was a sod for a 'car-park chat', wasn't he ... !?