1986 opened in a way which no one will forget. January 28, 1986 we watched on our television screens the Challenger space expedition, with 7 special astronauts aboard, lift off, pause, and explode in the glorious blue atmosphere. We were all shocked and stunned. While this was an American mission, the whole world had witnessed and were drawn into this tragedy.

 That evening my phone rang. Fred Dudden was on the line from Denver. Diana was there too (From Lubbock, Texas). Fred wondered if there were any way we might offer an opportunity, electronically, for people to express and share with each other their shock about Challenger. Could there be a worship experience? The inspiration for this suggestion may well have come from an earlier note from a good friend on UNISON, who had the online name, "Chef" (his real name is Joe Del Rosso, and yes, he is a chef).

 We decided to hang up our phones and join in an electronic chat on Speakeasy. Fred wanted the expression of worship to include all the Churches represented. Between us we threw in names from each of the Churches online. Fred left to do some phoning and soon ministers from three large protestant American denominations joined us on Speakeasy: the Rev. Curtis Ackley of the United Church of Christ, the Rev. Jim Collie of the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the Rev. Michael Henderson of the United Methodist Church.

 Fred's vision of "uniting the world", which was the inspiration for the name "UNISON" was to play an important part in what happened next, as did the Churches' desire to work ecumenically. (the word "ecumenic" comes from the Greek word, oikoumene, meaning the inhabited world. It does not mean merely, "Churches acting together" but it includes the concept of involving the whole world.)

 Not only did we represent some of the major Churches of North America [admittedly only a few], we also were geographically scattered over North America and beyond so as to give a sense of ecumenism in both its 'secular' and 'sacred' meaning. We worshiped together the next evening from our homes in places as far removed as: Texas, Pennsylvania, British Columbia, Northern California, Ontario, Maryland, Sweden and Hawaii.

 Each of us was willing to do whatever part was assigned. But what was to be done? Time was very short and whatever we did would have to be done in the next 24 hours in time stolen from already busy schedules. What exactly were we going to do?

We decided to follow the regular order of worship as would appear in any of our service books. This is what we agreed on:

 Prayer of Approach: Curt Ackley

 Confession: Jim Collie

 Assurance of Pardon: Michael Henderson

 Scripture: Gordon Laird

 Prayers: Curt Ackley

 Offerings of ourselves: Jim Collie

 Benediction : Michael Henderson

 Because we were working in an interactive medium we built into the service places where anyone reading the service was welcome to add their own comments, prayer or response.

 The Scripture was Psalm 8:

 "O Lord, our Lord, How majestic is thy name in all the earth! ...

 When I look at the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou has established;

 what is man [humankind] that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou dost care for him?

 Yet thou has made him a little less than God...."

 Following the Scripture was a branch for people to write whatever occurred to them as they read the psalm.

 After the Prayer Curt Ackley invited participants to add their own prayer to the community prayers.

 After "Offering of ourselves" Jim Collie invited everyone to share, in place of a money offering, a statement of how we would offer ourselves in light of the tragedy and in the fellowship of this service.

 In addition to these formal parts of the service Curt Ackley invited everyone to a "Coffee Hour" - where there could be informal chatting, such as we expect after a Sunday morning service. In the "Opener" of "Coffee Hour" Curt invited everyone to join "Speakeasy" for a completely informal and spontaneous chat.

 If the resulting service sounds somewhat normal and prosaic consider the immense technical problems awaiting us Tuesday night as we all agreed to do our part to have the service ready for the announced time, Wednesday, January 29th at 7pm.

 We had to make sure certain branches were "Read Only" - so that the original notes would remain uncluttered for whoever joined the branches, that night, the next morning or any time later.

 We could not post our contributions in the exact order which the service required. We were fighting already busy schedules so each minister would have to port his contribution when he had it ready. I opened a new branch called "Port Challenger" and asked Curt, Jim and Michael to send their parts as soon as possible. I had some vague notion that I could copy their contributions into the final branch, which would be called, "Memorial Service". But I also had time problems. And I could not get around the fact that as I ported the notes into the final branch they would show my name rather the name of the contributor.

The problem was solved by the genius of Diana Campbell who provided the technical knowledge to get the final setup to look as it should. Diana, with our permission, assumed our various names. She 'became' Curt Ackley and as Curt transferred his contribution into place in its proper order. It appeared as if Curt had just logged in at the right moment and made his contribution. Then Diana 'became' Jim Collie, and so forth.

 When you logon to UNISON you are always greeted with a general message, which might refer to someone's birthday, or it might be the notice of an important new conference.

 When you logged on to UNISON on January 29, 1986 you watched this message scroll across your screen:

 CHALLENGER EXPLODES UPON LIFTOFF - SEVEN ASTRONAUTS PERISH

 Curt Ackley, Jim Collie, Michael Henderson and Gordon Laird are planning a memorial service for us all to be part of. We are from different Churches. From different parts of the Country. From other countries. Mostly we have never seen each other. But we join with each other and with you in a time of touching the eternal realities, together.

 Please join with us at 7 pm Pacific Standard Time, (10 pm EST) Wednesday, January 29th here in PARTI.

 Shortly after the 7 pm deadline UNISON users read the following invitation:

 "MEMORIAL SERVICE" by DIANA, Jan. 28, 1986...FOR THE CHALLENGER CREW

 This is an interactive Memorial Service for the crew of the Challenger, their families, for school-children, for anyone who was shocked in disbelief by the TV pictures yesterday. It is more than that, it is an opportunity to touch on deep realities of our life and our own death. Curt Ackley, Michael Henderson, Jim Collie and Gordon Laird all minister to people in grief. We have joined in creating an experience which we hope will help all of us to deal corporately and creatively with those feelings. You will be invited at certain times to share your thoughts and feelings or you are welcome to read what others have written and be silent. Join us now in Worship.

 If you agreed to join you would find the first note to be a "Bulletin of Worship". Note 2 was the scripture sentence from Psalm 90:

 The years of our life are threescore and ten or even by reason of strength fourscore; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.

 ...So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

 Bob Cramer was sitting in his study in his home near Windsor, California. Bob is a Church Communications Consultant for a number of Churches, working from his study over a laptop computer. Bob worked from home because Judy and Bob had the concern of a "special child", Kern who suffered daily epileptic seizures, and both parents were required in case Kern needed to be rushed to the hospital. When Kern died, in January, 1987, the whole of the ecumenical community mourned with Bob and Judy.

 Shortly after 7 pm Pacific Standard Time, Wednesday January 29th, Bob logged onto UNISON, accepted the invitation to join "Memorial Service" and entered three notes: one as a response to Psalm 8:

 ...Christa [McAuliffe] was quoted as saying she took the "spirits" of her nine closest teacher colleagues-in-training with her. Someone on the radio here said, yes, she took all our spirits with her. Back to the Creator. Bob

 Then Bob entered his Community Prayer:

 Creator, Sustainer, Informer, give us the wild, free imagination to imagine You speaking from the Ball of Fire as You spoke to Moses from a Burning Bush...

 When Bob later wrote an article on "Memorial Service" for publication he included these words:

 I don't doubt that just a simple service of worship provided by a single minister or layperson, unfolding on the computer screen, would have made for an effective ministry.

 But to have four talented and sensitive clergy combine their ministries and then to have people able to share in the same way was to me one of the strongest affirmations yet of the essential "spirituality" of which computer networks are capable.

 The word "mission" comes to mind as I write because this was truly an outreach from ordinary places of worship into the marketplace where people - warm, caring, spiritual beings who nonetheless may not go to church - were communicating about other things and in other modes.

 Kelley Boan is one of those people in the marketplace - who is only connected to Church, as he says, "when I go to weddings and funerals. I haven't been to a service in years."

 Kelley is an American who lives in Stockholm, Sweden - working for the Swedish Telecom Administration. For Kelley logging on to UNISON is a real ordeal, not simply a matter of dialing a local telephone number, and allowing your computer to do the rest (as some of us accessing from North America were able to do).

On the night of January 29th Kelley went through his elaborate six or more steps, the failure of at any of the steps would have precluded him from logging on to UNISON. He was successful shortly after midnight Mountain Time. Thus it was the next morning that he was able to add his note to "Coffee Hour":

 Let me add my thanks to all of you for this service. It made a good way to put my unfocused feelings together this morning. Now maybe I can get something constructive done with the rest of the day. Like figuring out the best way I can make sure these seven people did not die in vain for the dream of space...

 Kelley confided later that his initial reaction, which has continued since, was to be "mad as hell" that the "PR pressure and the budget situation in NASA" made it inevitable that one of the missions would fail because of human error.

 From Sweden it helped him to realize that others were concerned and many felt the same as he did. Kelley summarized his feelings a year later:

 ...the conference ["Memorial Service"] was a good thing, I felt a good deal better when it was done. Only regret is that I couldn't participate in real time because of time changes.

 David Lochhead had accepted an invitation to spend three months in Hawaii at the invitation of a group of Churches on the windward side of Oahu across from Honolulu.

 On the night of January 29th, David accessed UNISON from his apartment in Kaneohe. David saved "Memorial Service" and printed it out for his first weekly meeting with the group of local pastors.

 The next day he sent me this note:

 I have just come from my first weekly meeting with the local pastors. I will be having a weekly session with them on interfaith dialogue, but this morning I took the occasion to talk about the other side of my work: computers.

 To clue them in to what we were involved with, I printed out:

 a. this week's lectionary discussion, including "Ground Hog day"

 b. this week's sermon shop

 c. last night's MEMORIAL SERVICE

 The group was MOST enthusiastic. I think the immediacy of the MEMORIAL SERVICE was really impressive for them.

 For we who had taken part in the behind the scenes work on Memorial Service it was not easy to find that a worshipful experience. We were in the situation which a pastor often find him/herself: Having put a lot of time and attention into the creation of a service and feeling responsible for the successful follow-through, it is very hard for the pastor to have a sense of worship about their own participation. This was certainly true of me.

 But the next morning I carried with me the whole text of Memorial Service to our weekly Ellesmere Share and Care Group. I told them about "Memorial Service" and then read it from beginning to end with and for them. Then I worshiped with them.

 We listened to the opening words which had been carefully crafted by the leadership team. We listened to the heartfelt responses of those who had joined and participated in "Memorial Service". Truly, we were "at one". Ecumenic, world-wide...in UNISON.

 I reminded my friends at "Care and Share" that I had not met "in the flesh" one of the people with whom I had shared the worship leadership. Our whole experience of trust and sharing had been a result of online computer communication.

 Memorial Service attracted a few dozen of the online people on UNISON. But the message of "Memorial Service" spread far wider than that. It is very easy to take a message from one system, like UNISON, and "port" it to many other systems. So we have no way of knowing how many people were in contact with this service.

 Nine months later in Montreal, in an International Conference on Church Communication by Computers I was sitting beside Al Reimers, Director of Scripture Production of the Canadian Bible Society from Toronto. During his presentation Al mentioned "Memorial Service" as an example of creative use of computer communication.

 When Al finished his presentation I asked him if he would like to see a copy of "Memorial Service". Al had only heard about it - had never seen it. I had ten copies of that service with me, and they soon went their way with other participants to France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Belgium.

 On the anniversary of the Challenger tragedy there was a time for memories and renewed interest in the event and in "Memorial Service". We discussed it again on NWI. This note provides a fitting AMEN to this topic:

 On Feb 3, 1987, Curt Ackley wrote this note:

 My son, Brian, age 8, was much moved by the recent review of the Challenger tragedy as a year had gone by. He didn't say much about it all day, but at the time of his prayers that night, he said to KC, "Mom, I want to pray for somebody else tonight - somebody who's not alive any more." His prayer: "Dear God, I am thinking of the people on the Challenger. I feel sorry about it. But I know they are in your hands. And I know you've got BIG hands, God. Keep them there. Amen."

 Amen, Brian, AMEN

---

 

 
"One Byte at a Time"

BEGINNING OF "ANSCOMB HOUSE"

 Clare Holmes is a Chaplain at the University of Victoria, B. C. and has been part of UCHUG right from the outset. Clare had for a number of years volunteered as Chaplain at Anscomb House, which is part of the Queen Alexandria Hospital in Victoria.

 Anscomb House is a residence for young people with Muscular Dystrophy. MD has severe physically disabling effects which removes the strength of the muscles. It is common for persons with MD to live a very few years after the symptoms are detected.

 Could Clare put two of his interests together - visiting the patients at Anscomb House and his daily computer communicating? Could some of the young people at Anscomb House be helped to create messages on Clare's computer?

The technical problems were immense. Clare found a way of making his computer portable and then worked with some of the young people at Anscomb House with various ways of having them enter messages.

 I was teaching, in our Tuesday afternoon Ellesmere Church School, several boys and girls in the age range of 11 - 13. I took my portable computer to Ellesmere and soon we had some introductory notes passing back and forth - with the help of Clare and me - between some very interested young people in two remarkably different situations.

 The first messages had to do with matters about which Clare and I had very little to contribute. They were talking about their favourite records and rock groups: "Blondie", "Motley Crue". Yes, they were communicating, and even these first efforts held great promise for the future.

 Eventually Clare suggested that the activity be moved on to UNISON. David Lochhead encouraged this idea and designed a conference specifically for the purpose. The Anscomb House residents would then have the opportunity of communicating all over North America! Fred and Diana agreed and provided a special rate for this online activity.

 A new network was set up on UNISON called "ANSCOMB HOUSE" which included a separate branch for each of the young people who wanted to communicate in this way. Here is how Clare described the Anscomb House setting:

 ANSCOMB HOUSE is a group home which has been built right in the middle of Queen Alexandra Childrens Hospital in Victoria, B.C. Each room opens on a large wrap-around sun deck which overlooks the San Juan Islands. Many of the residents of Anscomb House are young men with Muscular Dystrophy (MD). Other residents have other serious handicapping illnesses.

 Some people come here because their families can not care for them at home any longer. Some families let their young people live here even though they would rather have them at home so that they can have a measure of life as young people out in the world. The group home provides a fine balance between life under close medical supervision and doing the very maximum for yourself (from cooking to telecommunicating). Very caring parents and staff are not far away and they will watch over all who write here too. We must be careful of the limits of this medium for friendships so that we do not promise what we cannot deliver.

 There are many physically handicapped people who might benefit from this network with each other and with those of us who cruise around this wide world with great physical freedom. Since the Anscomb House gang took me into their lives I confess to being differently handicapped.

 How could those of us with complete or even partial use of our limbs understand the difficulties of making up those simple notes for someone with extensive physical handicaps?

 Clare attempted to explain this to us in a note entitled:

"ONE BYTE AT A TIME"

I would have called this whole project "one byte at a time" except that it would have taken the residents ten minutes to call in each message. A better name would be "1" and the "'s" could stand to be removed - have you any idea how many hand and finger motions go into keyboarding "1".

 This note is to alert you to some of the problems residents of Anscomb House live with. Muscular Dystrophy is a disease characterized by the gradual debilitation of the muscles.

 The Anscomb House residents are teenagers with all the energy and critical faculties of young men and women and at the same time they know the preciousness of time and energy in a way that is more characteristic of many of us in our middle age (when we discover the limits of ourselves).

 It seems to me, also, that they each develop some mixture of stubborn willfulness and gracious helplessness (depending on their character). They need help and then, in an instant, they do for themselves and persist against great limits and then, in an instant, and not always easily, they must take again the help they need.

 Their lives are full of volunteers. Volunteers come and go all the time and so they have many pleasant but not deep relationships. For those who hang around, however, there are deep waters to be enjoyed....

 We began to enjoy the personalities of each of the Anscomb participants. The first communicator and the best was Mark Prior. Mark called himself, "MARK THE INTERVIEWER" and "MARK THE FAMOUS WRITER".

 Clare described Mark this way:

 Maybe I can say a couple of things about Mark. I have to tell him early in the day that I am coming down after supper so that he can be rested when I get there about 6 pm. They simply have to accept some limits...

 Mark has arrived and is rearranging the furniture with his wheelchair and thumping things with the stick he runs the computer with.

 On April 1 we received this note from Clare:

 Up to now Mark has been our best telecommunicator. Mark passed away a few days ago. We miss him very much. Mark tried an assortment of sticks until he figured out how to hold the stick in his mouth and punch away on my NEC portable.

In our Easter Sunday service at Ellesmere (March 31, 1985) I informed the congregation that Mark Prior, one of our first Anscomb House telecommunicators had died. Without computer communication we would have never met this lively young man, whom Clare had introduced to us in this way.

 One of the many "coincidences" happened that Easter Sunday service. Present that day was a family who knew Mark's mother. When she heard that her son's death had been noted in a Church many miles from her home she expressed great interest. The conclusion of the story was an excellent meeting with Mrs. Payne which included Edna Dawson, my co-teacher.

 "Anscomb House" has since started up again on the NWI network. Conversations are now passing back and forth over not just North American, but Japan as well.

Undoubtedly computers have been used in ways which bring confinement and bondage to people. I have heard of instances in which computers have been used to keep track of the work output of secretaries using word processors so as to judge their efficiency, as well as the output of checkers in supermarkets. We are all familiar with the fact that so many pieces of information about ourselves are now lodged electronically in huge databases, that we wonder whether this information will be used against us.

 It should also be recognized that computers can be means of liberation for people in certain situations: for example, those who are geographically isolated, and in this instance, those who do not have the physical capabilities which most of us take for granted.

 GEORGIA GRIFFITH

 We have learned, through our computer contacts, that there are many people who are using computers in unexpected ways. The most dramatic story is that of Georgia Griffith, related to us by the Rev. Curtis Ackley of the United Church of Christ:

 I had gotten to know this friend on Compuserve. I talked to her for a couple of months in online chats; really looked forward to the times when we'd get the chance to chat.

 One day we were talking about worship - I'd asked her if she'd seen such-and-such a movie that we'd used once in church.

 It was then that she told me she was blind. She worked with a Braille reader called a Versawriter. Everything on her screen came in raised dots on her versy. Ah, but she was into music, and had a deep sense of spirituality...

 So I started asking her about music. And whether she had heard a new album..

 It was then that Georgia told me she was also deaf.

 Georgia Griffith is the only certified Braille music proofreader in America. She does contract work - proofed "Songs in the Key of Life" for Stevie Wonder, for instance.

 Mark Prior and Georgia Griffith have provided excellent examples of the potential of computer communications for many people in certain life situations.

Clare Holmes joined the Small Computers in the Church Committee. His presence is a continual reminder of the needs and possibilities of people like Mark and Georgia.

 We are encouraged to search for ways of using computers for purposes of liberation - not bondage.

Continue reading:  Chapters 10 and 11
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