VIRTUAL CONNECTIONS

When Dave Schaffner, then Board chair, first prosed the concept of a virtual chapter for those who wanted to be part of the Affiliates but were geographically too distant from an active chapter, the consensus was to move forward. However, many lingering questions remained.  That was over three years ago.

Subsequently, within a year, three virtual chapters were formed: (1) a U.S. based chapter (2) a contemplative chapter and, many months later, (3) the international and interfaith Kenya Chapter with members from Nairobi, Mombasa, Germany and many locations within the U.S.  An article about the Kenya virtual Chapter, written by Marita Grudzen, will appear in the upcoming NSFA.  Marita and her husband Gerry, who have been involved with interfaith work for decades, founded this virtual chapter.  The experiences of all three of those chapters has been positive beyond expectations on many distinct levels.

Now the whole world* is connecting virtually.  The post this week from the Los Angeles Chapter’s Zoom meeting on Anti-Racism is submitted as evidentiary material. I had three Zoom meetings myself in one day last week.  How many of us have already begun to speak of being “Zoomed out” - the therapy for which has not yet been determined? It appears that we’ll be living in this virtual world for many months (hopefully just months) to come.  Will the next MAC need to be virtual?! The people at MIT, Caltech and the like can figure out how to up the technology. Working out the psychological and spiritual aspects of all this is up to us mere humans. That is for a longer discussion beyond the confines of this post but we’re open to all ideas.

*Save the poor, without WiFi, computers or, for some, electricity