I was working in the sandbox one evening when Marlboro College was having an Open House for prospective students in SL. Esme encouraged me to carry on and feel free to mingle with any of the guests that might happen by. I think, at the time, I was still in the throes of building/rebuilding my ‘opus’ – the planter. After putting on the finishing touches I moved it up to the roof of the coffeehouse -thank you so much, Verbena for the coffeehouse. It’s my home away from home -I usually tuck into a funky egg chair before logging out each night.
Glimpsing over the edge, down to the sandbox (yps’ing), I noticed Esme chatting with an avatar in long dark robes. It looked like a priest from across the distance. Being nosey paid off because I figured out that I could use the zoom on my camera controls to ‘check it out’ without being anywhere in their vicinity, cool. I pulled up his profile, which was part of this week’s assignment, and saw that he belonged to several different religious organizations. I was so intrigued. Being such a noob I hadn’t even considered that ‘the church’ would have a presence in SL. When I asked Esme, later, she confirmed that there are several organized religions (and probably several that aren’t..) with groups active in SL. Politicians, too, have infiltrated SL I am told.
A bit later I decided to fly down and say hello. He was alone and had spent some time looking around the sandbox at the debris we’ve been creating ; } He wore gorgeous priestly vestments. We chatted for a few minutes and I mentioned that I had only been in SL for a couple of weeks. He replied that he’d been in SL for three days. I blurted out, “Geez, you’ve sure joined a lot groups for just being here three days.” Quickly following up with, “Our assignment this week is to learn to read avatars’ profiles.” He said he was learning the same. We parted ways shortly after.
It was one of those moments when I realize that SL is so much bigger than the sandbox. That avatar evidently had L$ to spend (the nice threads) and connections (all the groups), implying there was a purposeful design behind his SL existence. Pondering our brief exchange later, I wished I’d asked him if he was a virtual missionary or just a fellow traveler.
But the soul of no body knows
Where the parson goes, where does the parson go?
Name that tune.
May 26, 2008 at 4:00 am |
Cat Steven, Longer Boats from Tea for the Tillerman. But I must say i don’t know what that song is about.
E
May 27, 2008 at 1:02 am |
Most of the tracks on the album were exploring themes of spirituality, or perhaps the lack of. It’s commonly thought this album was the turning point when Cat Stevens began his shift away from music to focus on his spiritual life. It wasn’t meant in a specific context in this post. just that it was surprising to me, a newbie, to meet a priest in SL.
June 11, 2008 at 10:07 pm |
[...] you can learn from careless clicking So I noticed Eru’s mention of using camera controls to look at avatars on the sly, and that reminded me of a little adventure [...]