Church

I've spent most of the weekend getting a new laptop set up ("downloading update 1 of 57...") so it wasn't until today that I had a chance to visit SL again. Since I was home, I decided I would visit someplace peculiar to my interests and did a search on groups related to J.R.R. Tolkien. There were several, and I joined the one with the most members...the Tolkien Education Center and Museum in Eldamar.

Group names appear above the head of your Avatar, so Voces now has "Friend of Tolkien" above her name. Once the Bible Society has its own group, that name can go up there. I'm assuming that if you belong to more than one group, you can pick which one defines you. If not, the Massachusetts Bible Society will simply have to live with being a friend of Tolkien. Could be worse, but I won't go into that...

I had a good time at the Tolkien Center and dropped some Linden dollars on an Arwen gown, a celtic cross, and some furniture that may come in handy later on. There were some elaborate residences for sale that I took cards about--styles out of Rivendell and Lorien, and a castle or two. There were some caves also, presumably for the dwarven types.

I picked up some free Tolkien stuff, most notably a bracelet that triggers Tolkien trivia questions when near a treasure chest. I needed Gwyneth by my side who has a much better memory than I do for Middle Earth history (outside of the events in the books and movies). I did not do very well.

After wandering around the lovely land of Eldamar and then some of Eragon and wondering if the Bible Society wouldn't like to have a castle near an elven tree house, I decided that I would pop over to the dokimos cafe and pick up the Second Life Bible. As you will recall, I got e-mail right after joining from California Condor inviting me there. It's basically a Christian hangout, although no Christians were there hanging out except me. Of course it's Sunday and good Christians are in church and not home on their computers.

Except for the Christians who attend the ALM Cyber Church. I saw it on a list of churches in a search. I teleported to the church and looked around. The outside was contemporary and very colorful. I walked in and saw a notice that a worship service was to begin in 28 minutes! Obviously God wanted to be sure that I did not burn in hell for missing a Sunday at church and provided an opportunity where one would least expect it. SL runs on Pacific time, so it was a normal 11 am service, 2 pm in my time zone. I had company arriving at 3 pm and realized the clothes I was planning to wear were still in the washer, so I logged off, dashed down to the dryer, did a few other things to get ready in case the service took a full hour, and then logged back in for church.

The doors to the sanctuary were open and a few people had begun to gather. I went forward to one of the pews toward the front, right clicked on the seat and chose "sit down" from the menu. it told me there was no room. Well, there were only two other people in a pew that could have sat 15. But there was no room. I tried a pew with only one other person. No room. "Hey," I thought, "This is truly like a real church. I must be trying to sit in someone else's pew!" After several more pitiful attempts to find a seat, I caught on that you left-click instead and the avatar just sits down. A number of people were coming in now. No one spoke to me. A true church visitor experience--don't know where to sit, unfriendly people, etc.

Soon some folks began to walk up to the chancel in the front. Of course I took some pictures.

The screens ran announcements before the service and there was praise music playing as we gathered. The avatar on the piano was a furry--the name for those who choose animal avatars. The guy who came up to play the guitar was named Blundergroin Snoats. The pastor's name was Benjamin Psaltery. I'm absolutely sure there was no option of Psaltery for a last name when I signed up. Hmmm.

As the service was about to begin the pastor invited us to touch the pulpit and get a card. Right-clicking on an object and selecting the "touch" option is how you get things or operate things and none of us had to leave our pews to do it. The card had the order of service, which consisted of words to the praise songs, several scripture readings, and a place to take notes on the sermon. The songs were "There Is A River," "Humble Yourself" and "Hallelujah." The Scripture passages were Daniel 10:1-12, Jeremiah 29:13, and Daniel 10:20-21.

After inviting us to get the card, the pastor announced some prayer requests which sounded like real ones, so I'm guessing there's someplace there where you can put prayer requests. As he named those folks and then prayed, the furry avatar played at the piano. Also on the announcement screen was a notice that you could stay in the foyer afterwards for prayer and counseling. I noticed that California Condor was present. The screens advertised the dokimos cafe.

As you can see in the picture, there were several microphones across the front, but someone only came up to one of them and the praise songs began. Unlike the music playing as we came in, which was a professional recording by a contemporary Christian artist, the praise songs seemed to actually be the voices of the pastor and the one woman at the microphone in back. They weren't quite singing in different keys, but it was off enough to know that this was either performed live or recorded in someone's garage. We had the words to the songs, but if there was a way to actually sing along, I never discovered it.

Of course like in many evangelical churches, most of the worshippers were slipping off into their own little praise worlds--an interesting concept when you're already an avatar in a virtual world, but so it goes. As the singing went on, we were invited to stand--gotta stretch those legs, you know--and I took another picture of the congregation.

That is Voces in the foreground. I don't remember if I took a picture of myself with my new clothes on. As you can see, it was quite an eclectic mix. I don't know that I've ever seen a techno-warrior in church before, let alone a techno-warrior praising the Lord--check out the front pew across the aisle from me.

I discovered that one of the things I had been given in the box of freebies at the dokimos cafe was a folder of animations. Animations are things that your avatar can do in motion. These were specifically worship animations, which is what those avatars with their hands up in the air were doing. I turned on the "worship the Lord" animation and instantly Voces was in the praise groove, hands in the air and swaying side to side. I added the "receive" animation, which moved her arms from straight up to out in front of her, elbows bent and resting at the waist, hands upturned to receive. With the first animation still going, she held the new pose and swayed. When I turned off the first animation, she stopped swaying but left her hands in the receive pose. There was a praying pose also, which is the more traditional hands folded and head bowed.

I suspect there's a sermon there in the ability to turn worship animations on and off like that.

The music went on for quite some time and wasn't all that good. It was then I realized how handy it is to be able to have your avatar sit dutifully in church while you are in the next room folding laundry. When I came back, Voces was kind of slumped over, which is what happens to your avatar when you have been idle for a bit--or what happens to you in real life if you fall asleep in church! If I had stayed that way for 30 minutes, Second Life would have logged me off. But, one bump of the mouse, and Voces was back in the final strains of "Hallelujah."

The pastor read the first Daniel passage as the piano played and then began what seemed a rather shallow but not offensive sermon. He talked about how we rush about our business and don't wait for God to speak. Time and time again he said "God hears you from the very first day you seek him." "You have God's attention. Give it your all." He talked about Daniel humbling himself and seeking after God.

And then, like I would have expected from the Romans Road stuff on the walls of the dokimos cafe, it took a turn. "God is not a nice teddy bear who will embrace everyone like some churches think," Pastor Psaltery warned. "God does not turn a blind eye to sin. If you reject the sacrifice of the cross, judgment is coming. An hour from now you could be out of your body waiting for the gavel to fall with your judgment." And so it went from God longing for you and waiting for you and hearing you from the very first day to God salivating for that moment when the gavel comes down and the trap door to hell opens beneath your feet.

Thrown in was an occasional mocking of traditional spiritual disciplines ("Daniel didn't skip his favorite TV show and eat fish instead of steak for three weeks..."), which was an interesting choice of things to attack when preaching from Daniel since it is Daniel and his friends who gain favor with the King by sticking to their religious discipline of not eating the meat in the royal household. But I digress.

I had to log off before the end of the sermon, since my company was arriving, but I'm not sure I could have stomached the rest of it anyway. I'm virtually (no pun intended) sure that it all ended with the typical "now with every head bowed and every eye closed" type of altar call, but I couldn't stay.

Another religious voice is clearly needed in Second Life. Now I need to scope out some land with the "Where would Jesus live?" question informing my search. Probably not in the castle in Eldamar, which is a pity.

unknown friends

My next stop on info island told me about an upcoming Second Life scavenger hunt. Sounded interesting, but what caught my eye was an area advertising Techsoup.org: The technology place for nonprofits. That would be me.



So, I teleported to the Nonprofit Commons. It was basically a city, and I presume the buildings are for rent to non-profits. It's easy to wander out into for-profit areas, but I wandered about and found organizations like Preferred Family Healthcare, the Transgendered Resource Center, Refugees United, and Cystic Fibrosis Support. I also found a place called Good Samaritan, thinking it was related to the counseling center hosted by many churches. It wasn't. Apparently they help people on SL. Nobody was there, but there were free things--free textures and an age identifyer (for all those people lying about being 39?).



With nobody around (remind me not to rent in the non-profit sector!) and things for free, I was reminded that the SL guide I bought told me about a place called the Freebie Warehouse. Sounded like my kind of place, so I did a search and teleported there.



The Warehouse is set up like, well, a warehouse with lots of big boxes and not much else. When you right-click on each box, it reveals the contents and gives you the option to buy. They are all zero dollars, but you "buy" them anyway. There are vehicles and gadgets, furniture and buildings, clothing, and weapons. I haven't picked up any weapons, but I took everything else and will now have to sort through over a thousand items in my inventory and delete what I don't want.



I can't figure out how to look at clothes without actually wearing them. After having a couple of people run into me because I was just standing there trying on clothes, I moved in between a couple of the boxes. I just had ended up with different hair again when a woman in a white jumpsuit came by. She saw me, stopped, and said hello. "R u nu?" she asked in her best text-speak. I alluded that I was. She said this was her first day which already made her more adept than I was since she was off of Help Island, was wearing non-noob clothes, and had been places.

She told me she had already been to a monastery, the beach, and a church. It was an interesting set of locations, so I asked her about her choices and if she were religious. "I'm a Christian," she said. Obviously this was not a coincidence--hiding amongst the boxes as I was. I told her that I was head of the Massachusetts Bible Society and that I was clergy. Her SL name is Rilis and in real life she is an executive with a large computer company. I felt better about my inferior abilities. She was there for the same reason I was--to scope out SL so that her company can have a presence there.

We had a great conversation and became official Second Life friends, which makes her the first friend that I don't know, which is a decidedly odd thing to say. Her family came home and she had to go, but first she gave me the landmark for the monastery she visited. I teleported there and she left.

There is some lovely artwork in the monastery, all of it that I saw by German artists. When I clicked on each piece, I got a notecard about the art in German. Click again and you get it in English. There were a couple of people in monk's robes around, but I needed to wander to an unoccupied room to get my hair back. Another odd thing to be saying.

I found a nice room with some benches, sat Voces down, and set to work on the hair.

I got that basically figured out and saw a Bible on a stand that you could click on. As I was trying to make it open or something, a man in a green suit with wings and a cigar flew in a window. Just another day in my life...

Anyway, his SL name was Philosopher Iohan Beck. I don't know if he used "Philosopher" as part of his name or if that's a category you can adopt. The Iohan Beck part coupled with the German cards made me think I was in a German monastery, but as Iohan and I got talking, I discovered he was from Mexico. We found that we had a love of Kierkegaard in common, an interest he had not yet found in another SL person. So we became friends--the second friend I don't know.

Iohan invited me to come and meet the Cardinal and I followed him about the monastery grounds until we found him talking with another monk. All in Spanish. I really do need to learn Spanish. I could make out some of what they were saying just from common usage and a few things taught to me young by my Aunt Judy, who teaches Spanish. Iohan volunteered to translate for me.

I greeted the Cardinal. He speaks three languages, and I said that's how he got to be Cardinal. He said he was lobbying for pope, and we all agreed he would need at least nine languages for that.

It was getting late and I had an early morning coming, so I took my leave and logged out. Apparently there's a visitor's center for the monastery, which I missed somehow, so when I log back in (you go back to the place you left), I'll check that out. I'll also check out the surrounding area in case it might be suitable for MBS land.

Interfaith Relations

So I entered the Peace Park. I went first to my left to visit the mosque. A board on the outside gave me some links to information about Islam and asked me to remove my shoes before entering. A challenge for a noob, but I went into my inventory, found my shoes, right-clicked and selected "remove." Voila. No shoes. Nobody was around to see if I kept them on, but I like to respect the various customs.

It was a small little chapel with an information board inside about various customs and tenets of Islam. When you click on those things you get a notecard with a copy of the information that you can either delete or keep. I got the notecard. Then I noticed a green ball floating in mid-air that said "pray." I clicked on it, but nothing happened. I went back out, put on my shoes and walked over to the Christian chapel.

The sign didn't ask me to remove my shoes, but it gave me lots and lots of links to various Christian sites on the web. I went in. More green balls that said "praying." I remembered something from Help Island that talked about posing balls and figured that's what these were. I right-clicked this time and selected the option to sit down. Here's what Voces did.

That's a King James Bible you see on the lectern. Click on it and you get links to sites where you can read the KJV. The little white floating cross is what you click on to get specific information about Christianity. There were definitions for terms from Adam and Eve to Jesus, but didn't go further down the alphabet. The note said that the card was incomplete. I couldn't quite tell if Voces was kneeling down since I couldn't back up in my view any further without going through the back wall. When an avatar is using a posing ball, you can move around without the avatar moving.

I stood her up and we went back out into the Peace Park. A board advertised "The Essential Dalai Lama." It was a slide show. The first slide said "The most rapid and direct means to eternal bliss." Ironically it took some time to load!

Next to that was an open-air altar for Hinduism. Here it is:


When you right click on the fruit basket you can get a peeled banana which you then "wear" to have it show on your avatar. I wore a banana once in real life when I forgot it was in the pocket of the jacket I was wearing tied around my waist on a hike. It was an unpleasant experience. From the appearance of the altar, it seems that some left their gift bananas behind. Mine is back in my inventory.

Beside that was an apple tree. Fortunately it did not allow you to eat the apples or perhaps I would have found myself booted out of the garden! I did sit under the tree, however.

Yes, the hair is different from the photos from the Big Hair posts. As I noted back there, I forgot to save the new hair, so this is other hair that I edited. I liked the other better and will get back to it if I can. Behind Voces is a Buddhist shrine, and I went there next. There were the usual cards with links and information, and more posing balls. These said "meditation" and it struck me that I might get a different pose. Sure enough:
It was nice that I could just click "stand up" and up she came. If I assumed that pose for any length of time in real life, I would need to call 911.

I was quite struck with the artwork in this shrine. Here's a picture of the wall opposite the one you can see above.

There was also a Jewish synagogue with a Torah Scroll and then a garden in the center with a card for everything else from Atheism to Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism. The latter was set up as a link and the Druid in me needed to click on it. I got a message saying that I wasn't allowed to see that information. So much for interfaith relations!

As a side note, I got that blue streak on the back of my arm when I told the "editing appearance" guide to give me longer sleeves. I got the same short sleeves with blue marks on my arm. Clearly I have more to learn about fashion.

Info Island

I'm not sure who The Pathfinder is, but when I logged in, I was in his office. The different regions of SL are called "Sims" and I was in the Ambleside one, in Linden Village, in the Pathfinder's office. A bar across the top gives you both the name of the location and its coordinates on the map.



I looked around at some of the displays and found a board that said "Real Life Education Places in Second Life." There is real research going on here by established universities and agencies. NOAA had both weather and ecosystem simulations, there was the International Spaceflight Museum, and some social experiments. I opted to go to Info Island, which seemed like a wise next step after Help Island. I hit the teleport button and found myself in the SL Library on Info Island. The area was coded "mature," but everyone seemed to be dressed.



There was a lovely librarian who engaged me in chat and gave me a card that would supposedly take me back to Help Island, since I left involuntarily. I have yet to try it out. There was a woman nearby named Jaclyn Sparrow, which sounded enough like Jack Sparrow that I asked if she were a Pirates fan. No response. The librarian typed in "Jaclyn is a bit laggy today." I indicated that I knew the feeling.



When people chat, their avatars assume a typing pose, standing up, but typing on a keyboard, as you hear the click of the keys. It's a helpful indicator that someone is trying to say something. I decided that this was a safe enough place to explore--no guns anywhere to be seen--so I didn't try to return to Help Island. Instead I looked at what the Island has to offer which is, surprisingly enough, information.



I found a board labeled "Religious Resources" and teleported there. At first it didn't seem terribly religious. I landed facing Mystery Manor, which claimed to be under construction and invited me to come back. I traveled down the walkway and saw the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Portal Library. I read in an SL guidebook that I bought that there is a group for Tolkien fans. I made a mental note to revisit that board, but I was still on a religious quest. This is my job, after all!



I thought I must be headed in the wrong direction, so I turned around and went the other way. Soon a building labeled the Genealogy Research Center was looming in front of me. A sign on the side said "Beginning Jewish Genealogy" so I thought I was getting warmer. I didn't go in that building, but I can't imagine the Mormons aren't around there somewhere. I'd be lost (as would most of my ancestors) without their familysearch website.



I turned the corner from the genealogy building and saw an iron gate (well, virtual iron). Above the gate was a sign "Religious Resources." Another sign labeled it the Peace Park. Here's the entrance.

no more help

So my techie friend (Gwyneth from SL) is here and I figured I would have her help me figure out how to get my laptop graphics to do Second Life. We hunted for an update to my driver, found one, downloaded it, and my laptop said it would not install. How rude.

So I logged on to SL. While I could see a bit more than my last attempt at the office, much of the scenery was still just a gray mass. As I wandered around I saw a sign for a guide book. I touched it and it promised the book would be delivered to my inventory. I wandered into a new house on Help Island where you can practice sitting on furniture, opening and closing the blinds, etc.

There was a kiosk for a newspaper and I clicked on it. It told me that a copy of the paper would be delivered to my inventory. Another avatar came into the house. The head was a "he" with a little goatee beard. The body was a "she" and wearing a dress. And s/he was carrying the torch from orientation island.

Remembering my own torch struggles, I smiled, betting that s/he couldn't put it down. Sure enough, as soon as s/he got into chatting range the words came across my screen, "How the hell do I drop this thing?!" Unfortunately, I couldn't quite remember what I had done to get rid of it. I made a few suggestions. I looked again and s/he was carrying a sword instead of the torch. In another second the sword was replaced with a car, stuck to the side of the avatar. He went off muttering.

Then an avatar named Kung Fu came into the house. He had a large oval can in place of a head. Because of the can I'm just guessing at the sex, but I know very few women who would walk around the world...even a virtual one...with a can for a head. Must be a guy.

He called to me through the chat system and as I tried to respond, that's when I got stuck again. I couldn't move, couldn't chat. It crashed and I had to exit.

In the meantime, Gwyneth was on my desktop and discovered why I was having problems. The graphics card in my laptop wasn't one that was supported by SL. It predicted I would have exactly the problems I was having. But the problem is bigger than that. The card in my laptop can't be upgraded. Well, I figured, it's a few years old. Maybe it's time for a new laptop. But new laptops come with Windows Vista. SL won't work on Vista (quite a bit doesn't work on Vista apparently). So that's not good.

I checked my e-mail. I had two notes from SL, each one telling me that to receive the item I had clicked on earlier in my inventory I had to log in. It gave me a link--different e-mail for each item. Even though I figured it would probably freeze up, I thought I would at least log in and get the items.

I clicked on the link. A large map spread before me. I was in-world. This was not help island any more. And once you leave help island you can't go back. So I'm guessing that I'm done with trying to sit on furniture and will have to roam about on my own in the...ummm...real world. But I will do so next on my desktop.

Other info

For those of you who think I'm crazy (for doing Second Life, not for other reasons!) here's an article from the Religion News Service about religion in Second Life:

http://www.religionnews.com/ArticleofWeek060707.html

Friends

I'm off at a conference and finally had a chance to check my e-mail. There was a Second Life e-mail from an avatar named Gwyneth who wanted to be my friend! I suspected that this was someone official from the site--or perhaps a new kind of spam, since the last name wasn't Linden. But lo and behold there was another e-mail from my real-life best friend saying that she had created an avatar named Gwyneth.

Gwyneth is obviously much smarter than I am, since I had no clue about the friends thing. And, not-so-bright person that I am, I went back quickly to the Second Life e-mail and clicked on the link. Unfortunately that was the link to click if I didn't want to receive any more e-mail IM messages! So I had to undo what I had just undone.

Then I logged into the world and found the friend request was still there, much to my relief. So Gwyneth and I are now buddies in both our real and virtual lives.

I also had e-mail from California Condor, offering me a script. Scripts are bits of computer code that represent dynamic content for Second Life. Apparently California Condor has created a Second Life Bible. If I go to the Dokimos Cafe in Second Life, I can get the script for free. With it, a Bible will be invisibly attached to my avatar (don't know what version). Once it is attached, if I want to quote Scripture, I can just type in chapter and verse and it will come up. I'm not sure if it will also work as a concordance and finish a phrase I begin or not. But the next time I get a chance, I will head into the fuller virtual world and look for the Dokimos Cafe.

Probably that will not be for a few days, however. As I mentioned, I'm at a Conference, which isn't over until tomorrow night. Plus, when I went online here through my laptop, I was having the same display issues I had back at the office. So I have to figure out if I can update my display drivers somehow or if my Second Life will be limited to my desktop.

My first life is calling...

Hair Success

This was the problem with Voces' hair. Not that it is un-cute the way it is, but it wasn't what I wanted for the Bible Society. I played with editing appearance some more and got nowhere. So then I gave up for a bit and went to a different part of Help Island--the free store. I think that may well be an oxymoron, but there it was--a place to purchase things for 0 Linden dollars.

So I got some different clothes, some furniture for an eventual house...even a couple of pre-fab houses! And a couple of boxes with names like "Green stuff" and "Yellow stuff." You could also pick up new avatars. I left the green dragon but took the white wolf and the...ummm...banana. As I was opening those things up in my inventory, I looked in the inventory folder I had called "clothes." In it was not only clothing but hair--including City Chic hair. I removed it from the folder of things I was wearing and was left with the hair I had designed underneath all that. Here it is:

Obviously there is a picture-taking feature in Second Life.

Unfortunately, I neglected to save my new hair as an object. So, when I tried on the chartreuse hair that I got at the free store and wanted to change back...well, I had the option of the City Chic Hair again or another longer and more normal style from the free store. That new hair I could edit and I came up with something similar, but not exact.

Then I went on about the island. I went past the sign that said "No weapons" and another that reminded me this was a PG zone and I should keep my clothes on. Apparently there is a "mature" section, and (one would guess from the first sign) a section where one might get shot. Even a virtual second life isn't free from guns apparently.

I went to a line of music stands with barbershop parts, picked the alto, and Voces sang. I saw the instructions on how to move a beach ball, but someone seems to have taken the ball, as I couldn't find it. I got some free dance moves at the store, which may be why I couldn't dance before. I looked for the dance floor, but didn't find it again.

As I roamed to different areas, suddenly Voces began to run. She ran through a wall and got stuck in a sand dune. I couldn't move her at all. After a minute or so I heard a little ping and a message told me that the simulator I was on was going down. It gave me the option to quit, so I did. I have no idea whether I will come back with the same hair!