blogging Episcopalians

In the information age, we spend vast amounts of time and energy getting computers to connect.

But my question is: what does it take to get people to connect?

In one of her 'vampire chronicles,' Anne Rice called this a culture of "frenzied isolation." That's a phrase so apt, and so delicious, that I've adopted it as my own. And every time I say it out loud in a group of people, heads nod. We are busy. Not just busy, crazy-busy. Too busy to take time for our families, much less our neighbors.

So what does it mean that I've now joined a ring called "Blogging Episcopalians?" There are over 200 members. I spent an hour or so looking over the list of sites before joining the ring, and the vast majority are like the vast majority of Episcopalians I know: thoughtful. Deep. Insightful. Faithful. You could spend a whole day reading blogs on that list, and it would be a day well spent.

But am I adding to the problem? One more voice in the cacophany?

My current solution is, as with many things in the faith: to hold it in tension and let it stay there. My need to be in real, physical community, in tension with the reality that many of us today perceive a significant part of our lives through the lens of membership in a community that is present in all places and none.