Is Social Media a Prawn Cocktail?

This last weekend saw my inaugural voyage in the great ship The Christian New Media Conference. 

Now, you will either fall into two camps: those who went or would have been interested in so doing, or else those who have no idea what sort of conference that may be. If you are of the latter disposition, then think prayers and know that we were described as "geeks" with alarming frequency, added to which we were all sporting a dozen gadgets apiece, and you will get the idea. It was, basically, a gathering of bloggers, Tweeters, Facebookers and those who aspire to such levity.

One of my own concerns with social media as a 'world' is that it connects with tangible reality in the way that Kermit the Frog's legs and arms do - which is to say, they are never in the same shot at the same time. It is, without doubt, a part of reality as real people have real interactions. The matter and the fruits of social media are very real and for that I love it, embrace it and do all I can to compel others to come in.

Then we went and had our "Geeks Gathering" where I met three people (among many others), and to whom this post is warmly dedicated. They are three Christian ministers, who, alarmingly, seemed to be on the wavelength that I seem to exist on. It was the first time I had met them in my life, and I am glad that I did. Through social media, they are gentlemen with whom I had had various quantities of interaction through the gadget-mitigated world - but Saturday was the first time that I had ever actually met them.

And it was good. I venture to say that it was better. We had lunch together and a couple of beers apiece and we sorted out the world. It was a truly wonderful time - so it begs a question. In the great meal of life, is social media a good hearty starter? Nothing beats that 'face to face' stuff for me, the main course - and I doubt I could have engaged with those people from Saturday over a month of Sundays on Twitter and cover the ground that we did in an hour behind a pint! 

Social Media is one tool among many, in the various modes it exists, to bring people into contact with others. To be fair, I may not have been sat anywhere with anyone on Saturday without it, so from that point of view, I am endlessly grateful to my social-media life. I will always wonder though, if in the end, we are always called to move on to the main course and be with people, in proximity, like wot we used to. 

I want to thank the wonderful people with whom I spent time of Saturday, the lads and others who didn't bother joining us for lunch and everyone else who tolerated my tomfoolery, modest rages and all those other little facets of 'me' that emerge in lecture theatres. I was delighted to have met you!

Christmas in the Real

The essence of a sermon preached recently

The Christmas that we have come to know and love in Britain at least, is wrapped in imagery and notions that are wonderful for marketting and evocation, but less pinned to the facts. We see the usual Christmas Card images of little domed houses to represent a tiny peaceful Bethlehem (and the carol tell us so too). We see the 'magazine rack' manger in art and in the wonderful nativity plays that are unfolding all around us at the moment. We see the noble shepherds huddled around their hillside while their sheep gambol around the place. Cow sheds, silence and stillness are ever-present qualities in all the things that we see and sing about. A moment of attention to the real world of first-century Palestine will reveal all these images to be flawed, and to my mind, unhelpful.

The picture is at the checkpoint to enter Bethlehem from Jersualem - a forbidding and unsafe feeling place as one passes through the gates. The Bethlehem that I have visited and heard about is a busy place, a place of bustle and life. I am given to understand that it always was. The place is on a hillside so the warm air carried with it the fragrance of sweet smelling plants mixed with a very light tinge of effluent in places. Shepherds had a poor reputation, reegarded in  their day as borderline criminals - marginalised, excluded. The cow shed never existed - the Baby and his family were in a maze of caves in the hillside used as stables and storehouses. Mangers are hollowed out stone slabs, and if anyone has ever kept a pet, will know how saliva-washed sticky and snotty they can get.  I am sure that the Manger in our carols was no exception. The Holy family were refugees in an occupied territory, perhaps accustomed to checkpoints themselves. The Holy mother was herself a child of fourteen. How many labels and judgements would the Holy Family attract in enlightened 21st Century Britain today, I wonder?

It do not mean to decimate Christmas - quite the oppsite. I want to celebrate the place of the Birth of the Messiah in the same way that The Father did, and by seeing the world for what it is - real and flawed. God chose the real world of a messed up first-century Palestine as the place where he would cause his Incarnation. There were likely pretty verdant pastures with all the qualities of present-day Christmas imagary that God could have used - but he didn't. He chose messed up, messy, flawed, imperfect, stinky, snotty reality to breathe life into his only Son. 

This is a matter of complete hope for me, and should be for all of us. As we make our way through our lives, day by day, mistake upon error, mis-judgement alongside poor timing - we can take considerable comfort that that was the precise environment that God chose to come among us. It tells me, at least, that Our Lord understands his children only too well, and that in knowing us as we are in the good and the less good of living as human beings, accepts us as we hope all parents do (or should). Christmas did happen in the real, happens in the real every year, and all that will take place between us and God in the future will be placed into the context that we find ourselves in - not a picture perfect representation of where we think we should be.