{"id":1599,"date":"2007-07-18T22:45:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-18T22:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/jesus-loves-me-this-i-know-cause-my-avatar-tells-me-so.html"},"modified":"2007-07-18T22:45:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-18T22:45:00","slug":"jesus-loves-me-this-i-know-cause-my-avatar-tells-me-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/jesus-loves-me-this-i-know-cause-my-avatar-tells-me-so.html","title":{"rendered":"Jesus loves me, this I know, cause my avatar tells me so"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Don’t have time to go to church or bible class? No problem. A little religion is only a click away<\/a>, thanks to a software program called Second Life that allows you to take part in virtual bible meetings. You pick a name, select a character (or avatar) and connect with others at the appointed time:<\/p>\n

The session started late after the leader, Mariposa Psaltry, posted a message saying she would start in 10 minutes. Finally, there were five: Desiree Petunia, Cactus Barthelmess, CeeCee Meriman, Mariposa and Lauranne. Everyone appeared in the form of casually dressed women and not as animals or alien-looking creatures as I’d half-expected.<\/p>\n

My anxiety eased as soon as I saw words of welcome from Mariposa and other avatars on my screen. I replied that I was mostly there to observe. Mariposa typed a request for prayer concerns.<\/p>\n

That felt familiar and real, and so did the needs. Two avatar\/women asked prayer for friends and relatives in “RL” (real life). Mariposa then typed her prayer, thanking Jesus for a beautiful day “here in Virginia.” She mentioned the concerns and ended with “in Jesus name, Amen.”<\/p>\n

A musical tone notified me that I had mail. It was a postcard study guide and included questions about freedom and sin.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole thing to get an idea of what the experience was like. Is it redemptive? Uplifting? Weird? Hard to say. <\/p>\n

But if the day comes that they have virtual communion, then we’re really in trouble…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don’t have time to go to church or bible class? No problem. A little religion is only a click away, thanks to a software program called Second Life that allows you to take part in virtual bible meetings. You pick a name, select a character (or avatar) and connect with others at the appointed time:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nJesus loves me, this I know, cause my avatar tells me so - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/jesus-loves-me-this-i-know-cause-my-avatar-tells-me-so.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jesus loves me, this I know, cause my avatar tells me so - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Don’t have time to go to church or bible class? No problem. A little religion is only a click away, thanks to a software program called Second Life that allows you to take part in virtual bible meetings. You pick a name, select a character (or avatar) and connect with others at the appointed time:…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/jesus-loves-me-this-i-know-cause-my-avatar-tells-me-so.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-07-18T22:45:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/Rp7Sl9-lsxI\/AAAAAAAAAUA\/wbrJtLEOIh4\/s320\/virtual.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"deacon greg kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Jesus loves me, this I know, cause my avatar tells me so - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/jesus-loves-me-this-i-know-cause-my-avatar-tells-me-so.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jesus loves me, this I know, cause my avatar tells me so - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"Don’t have time to go to church or bible class? No problem. A little religion is only a click away, thanks to a software program called Second Life that allows you to take part in virtual bible meetings. You pick a name, select a character (or avatar) and connect with others at the appointed time:…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/jesus-loves-me-this-i-know-cause-my-avatar-tells-me-so.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2007-07-18T22:45:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/Rp7Sl9-lsxI\/AAAAAAAAAUA\/wbrJtLEOIh4\/s320\/virtual.jpg"}],"author":"deacon greg kandra","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/jesus-loves-me-this-i-know-cause-my-avatar-tells-me-so.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/jesus-loves-me-this-i-know-cause-my-avatar-tells-me-so.html","name":"Jesus loves me, this I know, cause my avatar tells me so - The Deacon's Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/jesus-loves-me-this-i-know-cause-my-avatar-tells-me-so.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/jesus-loves-me-this-i-know-cause-my-avatar-tells-me-so.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/Rp7Sl9-lsxI\/AAAAAAAAAUA\/wbrJtLEOIh4\/s320\/virtual.jpg","datePublished":"2007-07-18T22:45:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-07-18T22:45:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/jesus-loves-me-this-i-know-cause-my-avatar-tells-me-so.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/jesus-loves-me-this-i-know-cause-my-avatar-tells-me-so.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/jesus-loves-me-this-i-know-cause-my-avatar-tells-me-so.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/Rp7Sl9-lsxI\/AAAAAAAAAUA\/wbrJtLEOIh4\/s320\/virtual.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/Rp7Sl9-lsxI\/AAAAAAAAAUA\/wbrJtLEOIh4\/s320\/virtual.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/jesus-loves-me-this-i-know-cause-my-avatar-tells-me-so.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Jesus loves me, this I know, cause my avatar tells me so"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10","name":"deacon greg kandra","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","caption":"deacon greg kandra"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/deacon-greg-kandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/365"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}