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“I am sorry but I have to decline all the other audios. The recording is such that it is not possible to transcribe them.” These were not words I hoped to hear from the transcription service to which I had sent CDs of Henri Nouwen’s 1985 meditations on following Jesus. My plan was simple and would expedite my work as editor of A Spirituality of Homecoming, the next volume in The Henri Nouwen Spirituality Series: The transcription service would translate the admittedly challenging recordings into clean manuscripts that I would then edit with leisurely ease. No such luck.

Thus began months of leaning into my computer, earphones glued to my head, straining to understand Henri’s words as he moved about the large room at St. Paul’s Church in Harvard Square, sometimes near and sometimes far from a small cassette recorder with built-in microphone. The room held five hundred people, and it was overflowing with students and townspeople eager to hear the renowned Harvard professor speak about Christian discipleship. To my ears, it sounded as if half the city had squeezed into the parish fellowship hall. People shuffled their feet and rustled notebook paper. The audience erupted in waves of laughter at jokes, inaudible to me, that Henri muttered under his breath. A baby, with evident pleasure, repeatedly punctuated one of Henri’s talks with the words, “Dada, Dada, Dada….” Another time, a woman close to the microphone asked softly, “What did he say?” Her friend responded, “I think it was something about…” and, not able to make out his answer, my mind drifted to the scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian where Jesus is delivering the Beatitudes. Someone toward the rear of the crowd is having trouble hearing the prophet and wants to know what he just said. A companion responds, “Blessed are the cheese makers.”

Yet even though my tidy plan to edit perfectly accurate and cleanly formatted transcriptions of Henri’s talks had been thwarted, and even though my head buzzed with the background noise that shrouded Henri’s words, it was fitting that I should be the one to transcribe these tapes. Indeed, it was a homecoming of the most wonderful kind. Here I was in his presence again, more than three decades after the conclusion of five years as his teaching, research, and editorial assistant at Yale Divinity School. The Dutch-accented voice, so familiar from hours together in classrooms, chapels, retreat centers, and social evenings in his home, rose and fell with characteristic passion as he tried to evoke the challenge and the beauty of following Jesus.  The central themes of his presentations, well worn through repeat appearances in books, articles, and lectures, but still fresh with the vital urgency of truly good news. I could easily visualize his large hands reaching out into the air around him as if he might catch and hold before us the wonder of life in the Spirit of God. Yes, it was good to spend this time with Henri.

Homecomings sometimes have a way of moving us from the present to the past and then back once more to the present, but a present now reframed by new meaning. Initially, in the “present” of my editorial work, I was seeking simply to extract from these difficult recordings a publishable manuscript for the Henri Nouwen Spirituality Series. Then, as I entered the soundscape of those Harvard Square tapes, the richness of long past years with Henri drew me back through corridors of memory, and I sensed the presence of gracious Mystery that often seemed to accompany him.  All at once I was dwelling in both that invigorating past and a transfigured present. As I felt myself sitting among those in the parish hall listening intently to Henri’s impassioned meditations on Jesus, and felt too the tension in my back as I tried to follow Henri’s words in the midst of the human and technological din, it suddenly became clear that I was actually experiencing the reality Henri was describing. How difficult it is to hear Christ addressing us in the midst of our noisy world! How challenging it is to follow him when so much around us vies for our attention and commitment!

Here I was, earphones plugged in, sitting at the point where past, present, and future converge in the simple words “Come, follow me.”

When did you first hear those words?

How did you respond?

 For everything there is a season, and a time for

every matter under heaven.

—Ecclesiastes 3:1

 Conversation became more animated as my wife and I neared the movie theater. From all we had read and heard, the film we were about to see would be memorable. The Artist is an intriguing throwback to an early twentieth-century genre of moviemaking associated with Buster Keaton and Mary Pickford. Would we really be able to sustain attention and interest in a contemporary reprise of such a passé form of entertainment?

The Artist follows the fortunes of silent movie star George Valentin as he struggles to navigate the transition to talking movies. The film is deftly crafted, with a sure-footed narrative line strengthened by restrained use of pathos and humor. The question of whether the film would gain and hold our interest evaporated minutes into the viewing. We were not surprised when The Artist later won five Oscars.

At a critical point in the story, studio executives invite Valentin to join them in watching a new talking movie. It is an obvious attempt to win the silent screen idol over to what the executives believe is the coming era in the film industry. Not long into the showing, Valentin leaps up and storms out of the room declaring emphatically, “That’s not a movie!”

That scene, that phrase, and their larger context were unsettling in their familiarity. As someone whose working life has been occupied with editing magazines and books, it was impossible for me to watch Valentin’s story without recalling technologically and culturally driven changes now facing the world of print publishing. How often have I heard others say, and even said silently to myself, “An e-book isn’t a book!”

In our better moments, we acknowledge that books have not always existed in their current form. The widely available print book is a breed whose pedigree can be traced to the advent of the printing press in the fifteenth century. Yet for many of us, print books and culture seem eternally united. Books have been trustworthy companions waiting patiently on personal or community library shelves to offer us a word of encouragement, wisdom, or technical know-how. And, like any good friend, they are pleasant to be with. To feel the heft of a substantial volume in your hand, to smell the beckoning hint of unfamiliar mindscapes emitted by its pages, to notice with quiet contentment the subtle design decisions concerning typography, page layout, paper texture and opacity that enhance the content—all this and more confirms the conviction that words splayed across an e-reader screen cannot represent a real book. Instead, they are simply part of a content aggregation.

Really? Perhaps the new forms books will assume as a result of the digital revolution will have their own distinctive charms. I think of a coworker who not ten years ago typically travelled to events he was leading with an extra suitcase impossibly heavy with books he might want to consult. As more and more titles appear in digital formats, he will be able to make similar trips with a virtual library in his briefcase. Or consider the many enrichments an enhanced e-book might offer the spiritual seeker—embedded audio clips of sacred music or video segments of renowned teachers speaking about the subject of the chapter (if there are still chapters), links to a vast spectrum of graphics or supplementary literary sources that enlarge on the theme of the paragraph (if there are still paragraphs), perhaps even a holographic evening with the author describing why he or she was moved to write this book (if, with the phenomenon of crowd-sourcing, there is still an author).

Recently my editorial colleagues have been discussing the possibility of releasing digital books serially. With the technology available to us, we could publish one chapter of a book every week or two on a whole variety of e-platforms. Actually, it is an old idea. Historian Robert Darnton notes how in the mid-1600s publishers began to break up book-length texts into shorter bites. “The new typographical structure implied a new kind of reading and a new public: humble people, who lacked the facility and the time to take in lengthy stretches of narrative.”[1] Does this description bear a resemblance to that of some contemporary readers living fast-paced lives whose attention span has been influenced by immersion in the Internet and other digital environments?[2] If so, then perhaps the transition to a new kind of book will allow publishers to provide a new reading public with resources that appropriately meet its needs and interests.

For everything there is a season. What do you think?

John S. Mogabgab

Special Projects Editor

Upper Room Books is moving into our very own home on the Web. We’re still furnishing this home and making adjustments. We welcome your comments.

We look forward to being in conversation with readers, writers, and anyone just curious about what’s going on here. Christian community, prayer, and spiritual practice are our reasons for being. Upper Room Books is one of the ministries of The Upper Room, which started with a little devotional magazine published in the 1930s and has grown into a global prayer movement.

Let’s get to know each other.

Peace,

Jeannie Crawford-Lee

Editorial Director, Upper Room Books

By Paul Stroble

A friend once told me, “Paul, you were our Facebook before there was a Facebook!” He meant that I like to keep in touch with people. I seek ways to keep friendships preserved and to stay in touch. I don’t keep up with people as much as I’d like, but in comparison to my friend’s other acquaintances, apparently I do. Writing letters used to be a joy, but today email and Facebook are the primary ways I check on friends.

I never had a MySpace page, and I’m not on Linkedin, but I love the way Facebook brings people together. I reconnected with a high school friend, whom I hadn’t talked to for over thirty years. Shorty afterward his mother died, and so his other far-flung acquaintances and I gave him prayers and consolation. Without the power of contemporary social media, it’s hard to see how we could’ve supported him better. Participants in other online communities, like the Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir, testify to the caring they receive from people (whom they never meet) around the country and the world!

If you think about it, the majority of the New Testament literature is social networking! Verity Jones, writing in the Yale Divinity School alumni journal Reflections (Fall-Winter 2011), notes that Paul made connections among friends, disciples, and congregations around the Empire. Early Christian congregations had not only face-to-face communication but also “links” around the empire in a “web” of support, teaching, requests for help, and so on.

Today, the Internet creates community and provides for the fast spread of information. Email is an effective tool for churches’ prayer chains, perhaps more so than the telephone. I remember discussions in my parishes about the cost of Yellow Page ads and what we could afford, so that visitors would find us readily. Today, many churches have their own websites, providing schedules of events, information, sermons, and newsletters.

Effective as social media is, we would be lonely if our only religious activity was online. The fellowship of Sunday school classes and Vacation Bible Schools would likely be lost if these programs were conducted like online courses. Sites such as The Virtual Abbey, which conduct worship services on Twitter, offer interaction and fellowship, but of course, important activities and rites like the sacraments must happen with other people in the same physical room.

The benefit of online community is real-time support among people who are geographically scattered. For instance, if you share your troubles on Facebook, people who might otherwise never know your problem can express their concern when you need it most. Those of us who’ve received outpourings of friendship appreciate the power of instant, online communication.

Paul E. Stroble is an elder in The United Methodist Church, has served as parish pastor and college instructor, and currently teaches at Webster University in St. Louis. He is the author of 11 books, including You Gave Me a Wide Place: Holy Places of Our Lives (published by Upper Room Books).