Virtually Faithful - Shon Charisma Reporting...

Me at church...

Staff Reporter • Monday, November 22, 2010

In the year I've been in Second Life, I have immersed myself into various places to learn about what goes on in SL and what people do in SL. One thing, besides writing, that I do that connects with my real life is get virtualwith my faith.







IRL, I pray, worship, sing, and dance for the Lord. Makes sense that in other spaces where my identity is present I might choose to do the same thing, right?

Last spring, my RL best friend (who is also my bud on Second Life) told me about a church in Second Life; it is also a church IRL, and actually many real-life churches are moving their faith and their churches into virtual spaces, too. The first time I went, I was moved in the spirit in a way I hadn't been in a while. There was dance and worship, there was a powerful message by the pastor, there were the shouts and praises to God, and there was altar call, and I quickly moved to the front of the church to pray and thank God. It did not matter to me that this space was virtual, that in the idea of having to touch something in order for it to be real, this place had no physicality. I knew within my soul and spirit that something special was taking place here and within me, and God was in the center of it. Enough for me to believe.




Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro

And so I continued attending the church, going to their revival, coming to services, attending a few bible study sessions, and what all of this did was add to and strengthen what I did IRL. I've always been a fan of wanting to learn about the Lord in many facets and not be restricted by just one way of interpreting things, and faith in Second Life gave me a new lens in which to see faith develop and grow.

This summer, my virtual faith grew even more when I met Pet Karu in Second Life. A real-life pastor and counselor, Pet does many amazing things in Second Life, and one thing she did was create a group called *~*Unity*~*. Unity's mission is to take God's message to the next level through artistic endeavors in-world (in Second Life) and into the real world. Her personality, dedication to God, and focus captured me right from the start, and I auditioned to be a part of Unity.


UP Founder, Pet Karu

So, what has Unity done?

Well, we put together our first production, a musical adaptation of the Song of Solomon called Come Away My Beloved. It was a true labor of love in which all cast members and crew met Monday through Friday, 2 hours each night for prayer, rehearsal, and worship. What ended up happening many of those nights is that we would get so caught up in the spirit, that we'd stay for many hours after, dancing, singing, crying, sharing experiences, and thanking God for the opportunity to do so. The video below is raw footage I shot of us after the premiere of Come Away My Beloved. This type of break out dancing was pretty regular for us.

Come Away My Beloved was an hour-and-a-half production that saw many of the popular media outlets of Second Life either write articles on us or allow us to come on their show and talk about Unity, the production, and to do a performance. We've been invited to churches to lead their worship. Several of us have since become workers within churches of Second Life because these people see our commitment to spreading God's word. We have, since the successful run of Come Away My Beloved, been thinking about the future of Unity and what we want to do now in-world and in real life. Unity now has a website, and it's also on Twitter andFacebook.

A montage of Unity's Come Away My Beloved--segment of my solo comes at 1:02 mark.

Some might laugh, thinks it's crazy to be doing these things. Some have even said, how much faith is involved in making sure your avatar hits a dance ball on cue, in having an animation in your inventory to activate the real-life movement of praying or kneeling or worshiping God?


Part of Unity leading worship at an SL church

I can't speak for them. Or for anyone else. I know that for me it is important to surround myself with good people with good hearts and good intentions and good, strong faith in their back pocket and embedded in their heart, and no matter what space I find myself dwelling in, I need those people. IRL, I have those people--my family, my friends, teachers, church members that I can speak of God openly and be received. It only makes sense that in a place like Second Life, where I can create my body, buy a home for that body, buy clothes for that body, put that body to work (she writes in Second Life, too- yeah, I wrote this article -see how the lives blur?), I should be able to also allow faith to infiltrate that body, too.

When I do so, that faith resonates from the virtual spaces of Second Life and reverberate into the spaces of my real soul.


Most of Unity, praying before meeting

We are currently rehearsing for our second production, The Creation Story, which will premiere in December, and we're already thinking about our next big production and other smaller projects we want to share across the grid because with each performance, each project from us, we have the ability to affect at least oneperson. If that's not real, I don't know what is.


Me at an all-night prayer jam--one of many that occurred after rehearsals or shows.