Digital Paradise @ChirpyBirdy007

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1381968

Hello everybody! How are you? I haven’t spent much time online this Summer. So being here talking to you today feels like a lovely drink of water.

I hear that some of you have been writing on the theme of digital paradise. I haven’t read your articles yet, I want to give you my ideas first without being influenced.

It’s all very simple really. God wants us to look after each other. To do that we have to communicate. The Internet is the most effective communication tool since the invention of language.

We talk about the Internet being good or bad, but it is as neutral as pen and paper. It’s the people who use it that give the Internet its character. The digital age didn’t invent trolls, humanity did. (Chickens DID not.)

To make the whole of digital space into a part of God’s kingdom we have to love everyone in it. The biggest obstacle to that is the anonymity of the Internet. We can’t see the feelings on each other’s faces so we sometimes behave less kindly than we would otherwise.

• To be Christian on the Internet we have to think very carefully about each other’s feelings.
• This can train us to be nicer offline as well.

They say that blindness sharpens the other senses. Perhaps the face blindness we experience on the Internet can heighten our hearts.