James T. Dette                    First North American Serial Rights

22 Duer Place                About 750 words

Weehawken, NJ 07086              Copyright © 2013 James T. Dette

201-866-0692

jtdette@aol.com

A VIRTUAL COMMUNITY

Every day the media bring us another triumph in fulfilling the promise of the Information Age.  Our leaders are eager to tout the marvelous attributes and great expectations of these wonders.  Before too long, everyone in the developed world will be connected electronically.  Of course, that will still leave a few billion people on the outside looking in, including many in the developed world.

Chat rooms, dating services, blogs, and other nets of mutual interest are growing at phenomenal rates.  Even churches have weighed in on the side of the electronic community.  When my own congregation offers a hotline for counseling, the daily readings from the gospel, and referrals to social services prerecorded via the telephone, can Facebook be far behind?  Cloistered orders have home pages, and the Vatican can be reached at www.vatican.va.

I attended a day of recollection recently in which the director suggested that the Epistles of Paul could be summarized in one word, "unity."  He then proposed that the Internet might be a step in realizing that unity.  One of the participants described an older woman, confined to her home, who was now able to overcome her loneliness because she was online.  I couldn’t help thinking that some relative or friend, who should have been visiting her, was now off the hook.  So much for that corporal work of mercy.

Corporal works of mercy are derived from Matthew 25: 31 – 45, where we are admonished to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and imprisoned.  I wonder how many other works of mercy can now be delegated to the Internet.

The Depression days are gone when my mother reserved a special plate and cup for those men in caps and long overcoats who came to the back door, looking for something to eat.  Do you suppose we could find a way to feed the hungry via the World Wide Web?  Perhaps we can develop a virtual soup kitchen: a visual treat.  It wouldn’t do much for the stomach, but it would keep a real soup kitchen out of the neighborhood.

We welcome strangers into our home via the ubiquitous chat rooms.  We participate in lively discussions, sometimes baring our souls to people whose only introduction is an e-mail address and only character reference the common interest that drew us to the site.  On the other hand, we answer the doorbell to find two neatly dressed people carrying briefcases.  We open the door only wide enough to get our head out and listen politely, while waiting for the chance to tell them that we are not interested in what they have to say.  The two strangers at our door are not welcomed, because we have to get back to our chat room full of faceless strangers.

We now have the technology for the Virtual Marketplace.  With a click of the mouse, consumers can buy merchandise on the spot.  Is it possible to set up an electronic thrift shop?  Just imagine, the poor accessing the local Salvation Army via the Internet.

Caring for the sick used to be a hands-on healing ministry.  Now we have nurses remotely monitoring intensive care patients.  Vital signs, heartbeat, breathing, blood pressure, are displayed on screens through electronic circuitry.  Specialists anywhere in the world can review your medical test results and recommend a treatment without so much as pressing a stethoscope to your chest.

That day of recollection stayed with me.  Where had I heard that concept of unity before?  I found it in Genesis.

And the Lord said, "Behold, they are one people and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.  Come let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech."  So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.  Therefore its name was called Babel.

Are we building a new tower of Babel?  Is our pride setting us up for another fall?  Will the Internet bring the spiritual unity desired by Paul, or will our Judeo-Christian tradition of community be reduced to electronic works of mercy?  I hope we are not all headed to prisons of our own making with visits permitted only via the Internet.

The End