community christmas: thoughts on both subjects


Adam assumes the holiday position - sacked out on the couch watching Little Bear.

More tampering with fonts, colourrs and templates on my quest to the most beautiful blog EVER.

Spoke at First Baptist Church's Community Christmas Carol Sing. This is basically THE religious thing that downtown Vancouver comes to during the Christmas season. It was a packed house - 600+.

There was lots of singing, stuff for the kids and treats afterwards. I was the closing act. I spoke on homelesness, but with a twist - I spoke about how you can live IN a home but not feel AT home. Many people do not feel "at home" in their lives. But the good news of Christmas is that Jesus says that he will come into our lives and make a home there with us. I had a couple of good jokes in there and it was all over in a matter of 5-10 minutes.

I'm going to repeat the whole thing again next Sunday at another service.

I read the comments yesterday with interest. It's been fun to read Julie's's blog. As well I have checked out Stu's blog. And along the way have re-connected with other friends from Saskatchewan. And as we read, post and comment on each other's blogs, a virtual community begins to emerge.

I think this is one of the ways the internet (and technology as a whole) are changing how we define community. Julie lives in Belfast, but when I read about the sweater she made or about her interaction with someone on the bus, i am closer to her then i am to my next door neigbour Ron who is about 30 feet away from me right now as I type these words.

Community can only happen when there is communication and openess. The 26th floor of my building is not my community - I barely know most of the people on my floor. At first@night, some sparks of community are starting to happen.

Incidently, this observation on community is in sync with what Reg Bibby has reported in his latest book: the boomer factor.

Anyways - stay free brothers and sisters. And Nancy - why do you think you hold a special place in my heart? Ok - you do. It's trapped down there among all the other happy memories from Pioneer Camp and other wild debacles from my past.

Comments

cpb said…
The Nancy link leads to Julie's blog. Santosh, I prefer the current format of your blog. The 'carla' format was too dark.
9:18 AM
Julie said…
Santosh,
We all have happy Pioneer Camp memories in there somewhere. It appears that the B family are making quite a habit of commenting on your blog. I too like this new template the best (now you have all our opinions!) Thanks for plugging our blogs.
Julie :)
1:08 PM
Inihtar said…
The Internet does redefine our sense of "community." But we also need to beware of living completely online--forming relationships solely online, without spending enough time in our "real" lives.
9:48 PM
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