Chalice lightings

During the workshop during RE week at Ferry Beach 2010, we did chalice lightings at the beginning of every day. Karen pointed out that there’s a significant dearth of Internet-related chalice lightings, so we agreed to publish ours.

The following were chalice lightings we used in our workshop during RE week at Ferry Beach.

Chalice lighting 1, written by Will Kahn-Greene, Ferry Beach 2010:

Many say that the Internet is a lifeless place where interactions are shallow and connections are superficial.

In lighting this chalice, we recognize that sitting at every computer is a person who is capable of giving love and receiving love and that interactions and connections over the Internet can be as meaningful and empowering as a postcard in the mail, a note in your lunchbox, and a chat over ice cream.

Chalice lighting 2, written by Will Kahn-Greene, Ferry Beach 2010:

The Internet is like the air–it’s a medium that we can communicate through. It’s a medium that transcends location, geography and physical space. It’s a medium that brings us together from the far reaches of the globe. It’s a medium that allows us to share our worlds and our lives with our 6.6 billion neighbors and their worlds and their lives.

We light these chalices with hope.

Chalice lighting 3, written by Karen Bellavance-Grace, Ferry Beach 2010:

We create our chalice this morning....

...in praise of computers and routers and modems and all the hardware and software that can help us build our connections

...in praise of all the gremlins that live in the machines and bug our programs and help us to practice patience

...in praise of the trolls that dwell in the internet and push us to live out our first principle in real time by having faith that even trolls have inherent worth and dignity

...in praise of power surges that eat our data and devour our final draft for giving us the opportunity to rebuild and to remember that our work is as much transient as it is transcendent

...in praise of the Error: Page Not Found, which reminds us that with some people we need to find new paths to make connections because not everyone uses our keywords

...in praise of servers that drop our connections which reminds us that all who serve have built-in limits to their capacity

...in praise of communication and connection - whether it is face to face or facebook to facebook, there is always the risk of errors, hurt feelings, and miscommunication, but it is also, always, worth the risk.