DMin Project Cradle

A DMin colleague suggested that I think about using Moodle community as the basis of my DMin project earlier this week. I had spent most of the weekend getting smart about how to install Moodle on our server and set up courses/enroll students. Then I invited a dozen or more people to check it out and see what they thought. So far as I can tell (using the logs) a couple of people did actually check it out. But either no one figured out how to post on the forum or no one bothered.

Several people said they weren't ready (I invited a mix of ages and genders. One said typing was too difficult because of a recent injury. I feel a bit like the messenger in the parable inviting people to a party that no one can make the time or effort to attend. As in the parable, I get the idea that I may be inviting the wrong people. I've been thinking about how to entice people to join the forum. Judging from our DMin online experience, all I'd need is 8-12 dedicated people to co-create a worthwhile experience. Of course, we also have the motivation of a degree, a grade, and the money we're paying for same.

I thought of how much money would draw people in (but where would I get it)?

Then I thought of other people I know. Like Sue (Quaker wannabe) and Rob (rejected the church that rejected him) at the skate rink. A couple of friends I've gathered through lay speaker courses I've taught. Jim, my good friend who lives in Denver. I could reach out to any number of people in and beyond any wall or boundary I could imagine. Create a kind of online, virtual community. Drop in/out depending on what else is going on in your life. The hub wouldn't even have to be connected to me - because it would be easy to invite friends.

You would have to know your way around a computer, but so many people do. People who have yet to find (or to see a reason why they need) a connection in a church. It would be important to create drop in and out times, like an open house. We could use other methods of meeting and chatting. I could never be standardized, but always evolving. Like the Matrix, where some "rules" I have come to know could be bent and some could be broken.

I just thought about the "rule" that would bring us together. Search for truth? For Truth? How about: "I see/experience God in you." And "God" could be the unity (power, force, presence, love) that emanates and resonates and gravitates all that is. Our truest home. Our belonging. Our raison d'être.

Now feels like the right time to stop writing and to perk awhile. What of roles? Of rules? To deal with the harm we might cause each other in sharing our anxiety? People could simply drop out. We could learn more of the flow of this Unity in which we live and blog and move and experience our being - not alone but related, reunited.

I'll stop, though I could go on. And on.