I've just continued to read and read as I pursue understanding about the Emergent movement and what this might mean for me. Great Emergence by Phyllis Tickle was so significant and I appreciate her style so much that I have picked up some of her early titles. It's always interesting to go backward in an author's canon, seeing the seeds of ideas that will be fully articulated later.
Anyway, I'm reading her Prayer is a Place right now. This book is more biographical in addition to her "observations" of American religion during her time as the religion editor at PW (Publisher's Weekly). But it is here that she asks many of the questions that she answers more fully in Great Emergence.
Among those questions is "what makes us human?" Historically, it has been based on Descartes aphorism, "I think, therefore I am." But as our world and culture have changed around us, as more difficult questions are examined, like abortion, euthanasia, robotics, and more, there must be further examinations to this "human-ness" question.
I was astounded as she shared her discovery of ubuntu, an African theological/philosophical term that she learned from Desmond Tutu. In essence, it means, "I am, because you are." When I read this last night, I thoroughly arrested. This is a mind-boggling concept and must be pondered (both in the heart and soul). She illustrated the idea with Quantum physics where "without the observer, the observed is not, because it is indeterminate. Once observed, it is determinate and therefore is as it has been observed."
My first thought went to Second Life, a virtual community that I participate in sporadically now. But when you visit there in your avatar form, you can only "see" the parts of the community within your "virtual perception." If you fly about (yes, that's the most popular mode of travel), the canvas unfolds (or "rezzes") as you enter the area. It unfolds. It is always there and others are rezzing their areas, but for you, what you see and interact with... that's what is real for that moment. This was my first construct.
My second thought goes back to the work I have been doing, as a result of a study of Philippians, about koinonia (or community) and the sacred other. Our human-ness is directly related to our relationships. It requires more mindfulness then, our contact with others. Community and connection then is an essential to human-ness. Isolation places tremendous stress on a person and may, actually, sap their soul.
More to think about... more to consider.
