c. 2008 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) My writing world has gone topsy-turvy.

First, I started using an iMac at work _ not all that different from Windows, but different enough to require learning.

Second, with two business trips coming up, I began looking for ways to escape schlepping a heavy Dell laptop through airports. The new MacBookAir looked appealing at three pounds, but costly at $1,700.

Third, my oldest son pointed me to “cloud computing,” in which everything is done on the Internet, from writing to e-mail to calendar management. As an experiment, I’m writing this column using Google Docs on a web browser.

Finally, my desk chair collapsed, forcing me into the chair market.

To a writer, such events are unsettling, like losing a favorite pen.

On the one hand, words are still words, and someone who yearns to write can do it anywhere, under any conditions. On the other hand, environment matters. Given choices, I prefer a decent desk, comfortable chair, and responsive technology. I don’t care about stirring envy at a Starbucks counter, but I do want technology to be my friend when I sit down to write at home or on the road.

Topsy-turvy is what happens when fundamentals change, new opportunities emerge and chance intrudes. I spent three hours on Saturday exploring cloud computing and ended the day feeling edgy and at sea.

Make the intuitive leap, now, to faith. As our Hebrew ancestors and countless pilgrims have learned, faith can happen anywhere, under any conditions, without any equipment, facilities or books. Faith, like breathing, just happens.

And yet, environment matters. When our experience of Holy Writ changes _ new translations, new interpretations, new technology for delivery _ it is unsettling. Many believers cling to the 400-year-old King James Version, the tradition of interpretive authority residing in educated males, and a paradigm of like-minded souls sitting in a circle. Others, meanwhile, embrace new scholarship, even when it contradicts beloved assumptions, new voices, and self-directed study over the Internet.

Or consider worship. Throngs flow into mega-churches, drawn by their superior production values, strong preaching, air of excitement, and cutting-edge technology. Many others, meanwhile, seek smaller venues, even though the music is likely to be tame, the preaching lame and the crowd disconcertingly sparse. Still, they value face-to-face community and denominational continuity.

Just knowing that the other option is available can be unsettling. Not only can we no longer assume common ground with our Christian neighbor, but we harbor a suspicion that something better or entirely wrongheaded is going on over there.

Some turn backwards with a vengeance, or draw today’s line in the sand and say, “No farther!” Others risk the unsettling outcomes of exploration: what if women were granted authority, what if Mary Magdalene and Jesus were intimate, what if faith were profoundly personal, not communal?

Lately, I’ve been reading books from the so-called “historical Jesus” movement. They are fascinating and unsettling, opening new vistas, challenging my assumptions.

I think this is a time for Christians to be patient and tolerant. Patient with ourselves for feeling unsettled, patient with each other when paths diverge. And tolerant, not needing conformity or the right opinion, but accepting the pilgrim’s reality that, on the road with God, anything can happen, even something we didn’t anticipate or welcome.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, http://www.churchwellness.com. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)

KRE/CM END EHRICH650 words

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