Steve Taylor "I've been doing a bit of reading and writing around pilgrimage - and its something you've been talking about on your blog I notice - and the need to refind pilgrimage. There are physical dimensions eg go to visit chruches around the world. I wonder if there are cyber-dimensions - reading blogs, seasonal spiritual journeys etc.
Interesting few articles by some sociologists on how people adopt a range of stances toward pilgrimage; from a interested comparative sampling through to seeking through to genunine conversion. So the way we configure church and promote our spirituality needs to honour these wide range of searchers - to be accessible, journey orientated, hospitable, generous, authentic."
Steve, one of the dimensions that I have been looking at is our experience of MOTION in worship and spirituality. This is something that I have not heard a Christian mention in writing or speech, so I dont know what response I will get if I throw out some thoughts here, but let me give it a shot.
The postmodern shift has to do with differing experiences of time, space and MOTION. We normally deal with time and space (moment and ground, history and geogpraphy) but rarely with motion. But motion is important and we are using words like Journey, Quest, Pilgrimage, more and more.
Lev Manovich, a new media expert, distinguishes between objective space and navigable space. Much of the internet experience happens in navigable space - one screen leads to another screen, an image is a link to something else, etc. Cyberspace is a forward and sideward moving experience and not a static reading of texts.
I believe it would be helpful if we recognised worship as happening in objective space or navigable space. At present, "worship" in the modern church means something happening on a stage while people remain stationary (objective space). But there are many worship experiences that happen in navigable space:
Labyrinth, prayer walking, stations of the cross, pilgrimage, are all examples of worship in navigable space. An internet experience like your Lenten Pilgrimage is more of a journey in navigable space - it leads us somewhere.
You could even find navigable space in the festival worship of the Hebrews in the Old Testament - Feast of Tabernacles, for example, where people would move from one experience to another in different physical spaces.
