Saturday, December 27, 1997

Apple tempts sisters into contemplating virtual reality

By MARTIN WAINWRIGHT / The Guardian

DYSART, Scotland -- Contemplating over her Apple Mac, Sister Mary of the Carmelites is trying to make up her mind whether to post a Christmas message on the enclosed order's new Internet website.

"It'd be a nice touch, wouldn't it?" she says. "But my worry is that if I put a special message on, will I ever get round to taking it off when Christmas is over?"

The small problem is a minor glitch in the venture by the shy but spiritually powerful sisters into the world of cyber-chatting, e-mails and virtual convents.

The Carmelites' first rule-maker, patriarch Albert of Jerusalem, and their most famous mentor, St. Teresa of Avila, left no guidance on a weapon of communication so awesomely powerful.

"But we do know that it can and should be used for good," says Sister Mary, who has pondered the role of global information in freeing, for example, the people of the former Soviet Union and apartheid South Africa. "There has been much discussion among Carmels about how to proceed, and we are very pleased to have our website at last -- although I'm finding this version a little slow."

From her convent at Dysart, Scotland, and liaising with Britain's 24 other Carmels, Sister Mary checked out her technology with her computer-minded brother in Australia. The convent also sought advice from lay friends in Scotland, who took a list of requirements which astonished local dealers.

"Apparently they said, 'Surely one person can't want a computer to do all this,' " says Sister Mary. "You see, we have our accounts, publications, graphics, the music we use and a host of other things as well as the website. They thought for a long time and then came up with the Apple."

Unlike its biblical counterpart, which set Adam and Eve down the wrong track, the computer and its busy netlink is already proving a help to the sisters who spend their lives behind convent walls. The website has received rapid-response requests for prayers and is also spreading details of the order's work and way of life.

"We want to let people know we are here," says Sister Mary of St. Michael, a former president of the Association of Carmels of Great Britain who is also wired-up at a convent near Glasgow. "It isn't for recruiting, because the life of a nun is a vocation not a job, but there are people who seem to have forgotten that we exist.

"An Internet page puts us clearly on the map and shows that we can embrace new technology."

The website is relatively simple, but the Carmels are working on links to other Carmelite orders and counterparts in the United States, New Zealand and Europe. Sister Mary in Dysart says: "We're still feeling our way, and I know there are lots of changes we will probably want to make to the site."

The order is also considering the implications of inviting the world into the home -- albeit virtual home -- of religious sisters whose essence since St. Teresa's rules of 1562 has been an austere and contemplative, unworldly life.

"We will see how things work out, but many of the sisters -- there are some 350 in Britain -- are quite at home with computers," says Sister Mary. "We're not expecting an avalanche of interest, but the website is already receiving hits. We've only just installed a webcounter and it's just got to 32."

(The Carmels can be reached at: www.fortunecity.com/victorian/cloisters/32 /index.html)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)