In September of 1998 a very poor lay contemplative, ejected from the cloister, prayed for a computer so she could take an online philosophy course.  Lo and behold, God saw fit to send it. Her director, upon hearing of this development, suggested that Mariellen begin writing for email lists "as a way to share the fruits of contemplation."

    Nowadays he laughs when he tells this story, shaking his head and saying, "To think that back then you weren't at all interested!"

   Indeed I wasn't.  At that point it had already been some years since I had lost the ability to initiate spiritual correspondence, though for the first ten or so years of my active discipleship I wrote quite a lot of letters.  I wasn't much on initiating three dimensional spiritual conversation, either!

    Often I found, somewhat to my surprise, that I could respond helpfully to direct inquiry, but outside that circumstance I ordinarily didn't experience awareness of there being a spiritual thought anywhere in my head. I'd never even heard of email lists before my director mentioned them.  But I began checking them out one by one as an act of obedience.

    Most I very quickly left, but a few CIN (Catholic Information Network) lists seemed to draw out of me the sort of post Father had envisioned.  I hung around a bit, learned about "flaming" at firsthand, got kicked off a list I liked very much because some people there didn't like me, and finally about a year after getting my first computer started an email list of my own through what was then called OneList.

    SCI, or Shared Contemplative Insight, is originally a format for "live" scripture sharing which came to me right about the same time my computer did.  It worked remarkably well; rather like a fast-paced Ping-Pong game with the Holy Spirit doing the rebounding.  But for various reasons SCI didn't find enough interested people to become firmly established in the three dimensional plane. In my parish SCI had already moved to email when one day I noticed that Bill "Bugdaddy" Overcamp had started his own email list. How did you do that, Bill?  I asked.  It's easy, he responded.  Go to OneList.

     SCI-scripture@onelist.com soon gave birth to SCI-world.  Cathvoc followed a while after, then  pauperspennyworth, then SCI-voc.  Hermitsparlor began because so many contemplatives had joined the lists, yet many needed an atmosphere less social and more spiritually focused than email community frequently ends by giving.  A little bit of everything tends to go on, when list members have that freedom!

     It is only a few months ago now that Peter began to nurture a vision for the SCI: Your Two Cents group toopennysworth@smartgroups.com, and finally, only a month or so ago, the two of us together began the SCI-baars list.  Peter?  you might be asking.  Yup.  Here's that story.

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February 12, 2004