It is an eerie thing to stand in an empty church, look into a phone and with great enthusiasm exclaim…“The Lord be with you!” When actually there is no-one there. I try really hard to act normal, to pretend I can see who ever is on the other side of the screen, but when I look past the phone, all I see are empty pews.
Sometimes on the screen I can tell that someone is looking in, but that has turned out to be an unhelpful distraction. There is enough to think about with bread, wine, words and what comes next.
After it is all over, I pack up, do the washing up, put out the candles, turn out the lights and frequently I catch myself thinking. “What was all that about”? A celebration that is so geared towards the building up community did not feel like a celebration at all. The community was absent.
Now heres another hard question. Is this electronic, ethernet action better than nothing? Perhaps ‘nothing’ would be more honest and speak more loudly.
Then I get home and look at the numbers of folk. I hear the odd comment that is fed back to me and I swing back to thinking… “Yes, this ‘something’, whatever the ‘something’ is, is better than nothing at all. People hear the word, reflect (hopefully) on the homily and can ‘see’ others who are tuned in. People that had not connected with the Church, are now in some way ‘connected’.
This gives me a steer to the future. I should try to continue to make it happen for those who physically just can’t get there on a Sunday and for those who are just curious and want to dance around in the shadows from a ‘safe’ anonymous distance.