The virtual world, Second Life, has been around for a couple of years which, in Internet terms, makes it old news and ancient history. Nevertheless, Second Life recently popped up on my personal radar. I have Twitter to thank for that.More specifically, my thanks go to a group of gal pals active in Twitter's healthcare social media community and a New Zealand-based Anglican priest. My gals pals decided we ought to change our avatars to images of Wonder Woman for a weekend. Fr. Bosco Peters tweeted a link to his post about virtual sacraments.
I loved my weekend as Wonder Woman. Judging from tweets about using magic bracelets to ward off ridiculous demands for ROI measurements, so did everyone else. Dealing with the healthcare industry seemed so much easier in that persona, thus providing a glimpse of what might motivate anyone's participation in Second Life. Maybe it would be easier to work in healthcare communications over there? And, gee, what would participating in church community be like?
This kicker from Fr. Peters' post, "Virtual Eucharist: Can sacraments work in the virtual world?" has further piqued my curiosity about such possibilities:
"What we need is not a parodying in the virtual world of that which is particular to Real Life -- we need to discern appropriate ways of mission and ministry in and through the virtual world that may very well be significantly different to what we can do in the Real World. It is that which is its blessing and its challenge."While, I'm not rushing to create a Second Life, I do find myself pondering how to make imagination, creativity, and innovation more possible in this one. I'm also wondering why, after I'd restored my usual head shot after my weekend as Wonder Woman, someone on Twitter asked, "Are you a nun? Or just a devout woman?"
