DISQUS

LLB · 3 months ago

So sorry to hear about your dog. I almost feel strange commenting about the rest of the post.

Okay, but as to the question of how real on-line relationships are... I have two words...

pumpkin pancakes.

http://greeninventionscentral.blogspot.com/2009...

goodwordediting · 3 months ago

Interesting, L.L. So you had an almost physical experience of eating food
prepared (in recipe form at least) by your friend Teacher Eric. That makes
the relationship real like Charles says. But I'm still wondering if that
kind of relationship replaces the more traditional neighbors next door,
friends in the same church, etc.
Are the body and the spirit fully separate? Or do we need the body?

Glynn Young · 3 months ago

In the last several months, I have developed what I consider real relationships with a number of people whom I only know online. I've never heard their physical voices; I've seen some of their pictures. But I consider them friends, as we tweet, post, comment and email one another. And I've come to treasure those friendships.

But church, well, church is the body of Christ. There's church universal, which includes many of my online friends, and there's the local church, where there's face-to-face, know-them-and-work-with-them-as-we-sing-together-and-work-together-and-pray-together-and-worship-together relationships. I've just returned from a work day at church, where I worked side-by-side with a retired Marine for three hours hacking away at invasive honeysuckle. What we learned about each other in that time was both spoken and unspoken, and what we were doing together was a kind of service and worship.

And I fully agree, Marcus, about the 3000 people singing the hymns from a jumbo-tron. I left a church like that after a raft of sermons on the Gospel of Jabez.

goodwordediting · 3 months ago

Glynn, you said, "What we learned about each other in that time was both
spoken and unspoken." Isn't that the real limitation of net based
relationships? For now at least, there is no way to share silence together.
To be online is to speak or respond in some way.
(For example, my responding to this comment is the way I show my presence
here although I read the comment on Friday evening. There was no community
built exactly until I responded--either publicly or privately in an email.)

Glynn · 3 months ago

Marcus, it is a limitation. But there's also a kind of longing to hear a response, because you value the person the response is coming from. In a way, that longing period is a way to share the silence. But I don't disagree with your point at all -- the church is most the church when you can shake hands with flesh and blood, hear the pain in someone's voice when you pray together, and feel the movement next to you in a pew when the worship is rising upward.

goodwordediting · 3 months ago

I agree completely. Another thing I miss online is shared silence. Our church has lots of shared silence and that is a rare thing in the world. I'm not even quite sure what it would look like online.

goodwordediting · 3 months ago

I'm reposting this comment for Susan:

"I would be a different me." Yes, I agree, Marcus. And that goes for loss of relationships as well. When I was married I was one "me" and after a painful divorce I was a different "me". Whether one was better or worse remains to be determined, but they certainly are different people.

Interesting read as I drink coffee and look forward to the meeting of our local body this morning. I would miss my online friends were they not around. I think I might die without my local ones! Certainly life would not be as full and rich as it is! (life with no Cravers - not to be imagined!)

agoodyear · 3 months ago

I ignored you.

goodwordediting · 3 months ago

What did you go and do that for?

LLB · 3 months ago

It doesn't replace the relationships next door. Nor the church friends. It does mean I may have a place to visit when I next go to Georgia. It means he and I ate our pancakes at around the same time, and that we will keep on exchanging recipe notes. It means I am sad that his home is in the middle of a deluge.

Body is important, yes. And the best of worlds, when body and spirit are together in the same place. Yes, oh yes.

But, and this has been said before by others... sometimes we get more spirit from those who aren't with us in body. It's unpredictable, as I suspect it has always been.

goodwordediting · 3 months ago

Good point about sometimes getting more spirit from those who aren't with us
in body.

debtalkatthetable · 2 months ago

readers who don't comment. I like just knowing they were there.
Even when they aren't I can imagine. Just like in church when I imagine all of the families in the same spiritual space as me. Hardly seems likely, but I like to believe.

Bradley J. Moore · 2 months ago

marcus - I'm with you about the online church thing. I, too, have really enjoyed the new friends I have made online (which my offline friends think is totally whack) but there is something so much more "real" about in meeting in the flesh, and all of the uncomfortable awkwardness and exchange of heat that comes from being together.

I do hope to see you in real life some day soon, and I know that it will be much different than our exchanges online.

charlesfosterjohnson · 2 months ago

Marcus, this is a great post. Precisely the kind of essay a blog is for. Thanks for addressing a key issue.

Man, I'm sorry about the loss of your dog. Been there, and the grief is real.

You and I are a perfect example of your point: we've developed our friendship online, and I count you as a colleague. BUT, that doesn't negate my desire for face to face tactile and sensory interaction with you.

So, online communication as a tool and a means-- not a replacement-- for true Christian community.

CFJ

Jennw2ns · 2 months ago

I guess I'm not saying anything new here, but I just wanted to chime in (to show I'm reading--I know we haven't been in touch in a while!), and to say I'm really glad you said that bit about not being a dualist . . . because *I* probably would've said it down here if you hadn't. Whether or not you can befriend someone without physically meeting them, I still feel the body is an integral part of selfhood. I think that's what the Incarnation was about.

I, too, am sorry about your dog. I just got a dog this summer, and I'm so glad to have, him, but even now sometimes I think about the sad day (hopefully far into the future) when I'll have to bury him next to a tree . . .

nAncY · 2 months ago

yes, we can be present with people via on line, but, not exactly like we are present with people in person. that can also be said for the telephone, a letter, sign language, a bull horn, smoke signals, and prayer. yes, we can be present via different means, and none of them are the same. they all have unique ways of relating, but, it is all relating. i think that, without comparing, that the need for more than one way of relating with others is part of the reaching out that God wants to do. i admitt, that God's work through the Spirit is a mystery, and who is to say what He will do through any of these things.

if i do not meet you on earth someday...i will see you later in Heaven.

it would be nice to visit you in texas. we shall see.

cindy hanson · 2 months ago

Nice. Very nice thought lines going on over here, Marcus. I am a dualist. God gave me this body to experience this world in a spiritual way... Huh? Here's what I mean.

I go to a 'mega' church, that is big into the 'meta' church. (check out Ephesians) If we look back into history, much of the christian church was built over correspondence. What is the internet, correspondence, but on 'speed'.

However, Paul relied on laity to care for the physical need. We can become friends online, and the relationships are real, life changing, and uplifting, but until you SAY your dog died (so sorry BTW) or that you've suffered a loss, the partner in the relationship absolutely can't know that.

When I go to church, or work, or small groups.... friends there will automatically SEE there is something wrong. God meant for us to be both physical and spiritual, real and virtual. One of our eternal purposes is to care for one another, and that means physically, just as much to care ABOUT one another.

Both are essential to true maturation as the people of God. What our bodies and spirits are like are part of a bigger design, and really irrelevant in the sense that we all will come from different places, it's what growing together is all about.

Sam Van Eman · 2 months ago

Shoot! I made the friends list and it took me nearly a month to show up in (real online) person. Sorry, Marcus. I read your posts but somehow I missed this one.

Can we still be friends?

goodwordediting · 2 months ago

Of course. Sorry we didn't reconnect last night. I got to the airport
and things were difficult. We sorted it all out, but I needed all of
my mental capacity.

Sam Van Eman · 2 months ago

No problem. If you had called back right away, I would have been in good shape, but as I got closer to my talk and Philly (a city I've never entered, and at night in the rain no less), I had to use all of my mental capacity, too.

Safe travels.