Spirituality might not sound like something that should really have a presence online. However, I find I have reason to speak of it as I blog from the 50th floor of the Millennium Hilton Hotel, New York on a glorious Sunday morning.
My mother and I have just returned from a service at St Paul’s Chapel - known as “the little chapel that stood”. On 11th September 2001, the chapel witnessed the world-changing terror attacks first hand, and was the only structure in the square around the WTC that did not suffer any damage at all. That, in itself, is an amazing feat, that cannot really be explained by earthly-minded people. However, the chapel then played an important part in the emergency efforts, with firefighters sleeping in the pews as the round-the-clock rescue efforts got under way.
Today, the chapel is more of a museum, with exhibits around the edges detailing events and banners of support still hanging on walls around. There is a constant flow of site-seers, even throughout services, and the place seems to be constantly busy with people – for many of whom this is a kind of pilgrimage.
For us, it is the nearest church celebrating Eucarist close to the hotel (I can see the chapel from the window of the hotel landing (as pictured). We went to experience the quite different style of service at this Episcopal church. What we found, was that we ended up at the launch of a spiritual online iniciative.
Today, at St Paul’s Chapel, the Counting Prayers project was launched. A very simple prayer, aimed at tackling world poverty, was said several times (followed by the church’s traditional response, which is to sing “we are your hands, we are your voice”), thus launching an online project to count the number of times this prayer is said and how many prayers it will take before the UN Millennium Delvelopment Goals are met. The site can be found at www.countingprayers.org and I have a copy of the counter here on my blog, so we can keep up with how they are doing.
Religious people (not just Christians) are suddenly realising the power of the Internet to spread prayer. What will be interesting to see (and study prehaps) is the way in which the t’internet is used in relation to spirituality in the future. Will it be a way of just delivering messages and counting support for spiritual ideologies? Will it become a part of the spiritual experience? Can you have a spiritual experience using a computer? Is this what we want?
I may well have to come back to these ideas. For now, I shall leave you with them… as I really want to enjoy the view!
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