Five surprising things I’m actually not trying to do or say here at all!
Updated: Sep 18
The thing is, I arrive here as a thinker above all.
I’m a thinker who spent at least four decades in a church environment and often had nowhere to go with exactly what I was thinking.
Sometimes I was thinking,
"I know what would be exciting to do with this space!"
But then someone else would let me know the space I was staring at already had a purpose. So that was that.
Sometimes I was thinking,
"Why is nobody actually talking about the thing that seems so obvious to talk about?"
But then someone else would let me know that the thing I felt was obvious to talk about was not supposed to be said aloud, and wasn't helpful.
I wasn't trying to rock the boat. But that was that.
And sometimes I was thinking,
"It seems to me that these buildings are only really necessary because they enable people within them to imagine something that the buildings aren’t actually necessary for."
And then other people would say,
"I’m sorry, what—?"
All in all, it's not surprising I'm left drawing sketches with tech. But it was never about tech.
That’s why I thought I’d better make a list of what I’m not trying to say.
Or do.
Here goes. Number one.
I am not terribly interested in working with technology, as such.
Well, that probably sounds surprising. This is a website after all, isn’t it?
Yes, but it’s here to do some heavy lifting and not because my heart is set on making websites.
On to number two.
I am definitely not trying to find more efficient ways to get a message across straightforwardly to those who need to hear a message.
That might shock and horrify some people who thought that I was here for evangelistic reasons.
“Surely every Christian is here for evangelistic reasons!”
Yes, I see that we're called to be witnesses. But please note number three.
I am not suggesting that I have a ready-made answer and trying to use technology to teach you it.
Some people use poems and songs as battering rams, don't they. Not content with letting poetry and music evoke something more deeply, they want to ram it home and move on.
shudder
I always think about this when I find myself teaching four year olds.
I’d rather respond with genuine wonder and interest, listening as they explain to me how maths works in their heads, so I can ask them questions and let them help me think about it aloud.
In a similar way, when I've written songs, poems, it's because I'm yearning for us to share a vantage point for a moment, so we can stand together and encounter the same sunrise.
It's not so I can package my viewpoint and quietly administer it to you when you're busy humming along and looking the other way…
Where were we? Ah, yes, number four.
I’m not assuming that my project is ultimately going to be anything more than a lens to show us why it didn’t work.
This gets to the crux of it, you know.
Give me a huge auditorium, some gaffer tape, a few stage blocks, and some ropes and ribbons hanging from the lighting rig, and you'll find me using it all to create scaffolding — just like I’m doing with this site beyond the Stage Door. Oh, yes, I’d also want some actors to stand in — with labels tied around their necks to explain who they were in that scenario, so that we could do something cleverly gestalt and nuanced along the lines of relational dynamics.
I’d be doing all this to think aloud.
Then I would stand there with my finger on my chin staring into space for a moment.
And that’s all this is, I promise.
Final one. Number five.
I’m not trying to promote virtual encounters over real-life, everyday ones, or theatrical or literary or artistic or theopoetic encounters over everyday ordinariness. I’m really not.
But here’s the thing.
Even in the mere half century or so that I’ve been alive — in the very small corner of contemporary culture that I occupy in the grand scheme of things — I’ve seen changes taking place that have thoroughly flattened and reduced just about every potential space for deeper encounter.
For real encounter, that is.
Do you remember life pre-optimisation? No predictive text.
No phones. (Not just no smartphones. No telephones.)
What did we have?
The raw materials of 'here' and 'there.' (I'm pointing in different directions to show I mean locations, but not just locations.) We weren't trading in rare commodities, like one word domain names.
We could point to many corners of countryside that weren't immediately bought up and developed.
There were delightfully free and uncontested empty spaces all around that were not immediately snapped up for carparks and building sites… for persistently un-bought buildings…
Hmm.
Now wandering is surveilled. Writing is put through the filters and sieves of templates and formulas that they teach in school, then require from you in the tax office and the health centre.
Identities distorting.
Presence versus mere attendance.
We're still here, but it's — different.
The good news — the witness: there are major parts of us that are still unmeasured and unmeasurable.
There are, still. Inwardly, within each of us. I believe that. Non-transactional. Still precious and untapped.
Made in the image of God. Somewhere, on paper, we know this instinctively. But there's precious little room to explore it, talk about it, or even remember it some days.
And the moment you say it aloud, something gets framed, the meaning shifts, and the thing you were pointing to hides again, while something else becomes another product to tag and link and trade in.
So my virtual spaces provide a kind of algebra for reminding us of what can't
even be said. Or dare not be said.
…
Perhaps someone will humour me, and play along with the premise of my thought experiments, even if they don't agree. Or get what I'm doing.
(I know. It’s as if I’m talking nonsense, isn’t it…?)
