Yesterday, I entered the 20th century. I’ve long since embraced 21st century geekery with the blog, facebook, flickr, pvr etc. However, one piece of last-century technology which I have quite firmly, and uncharacteristically eschewed has been the mobile phone. Although I have carried a mobile for a long time, it has been on a very limited and very old contract and I basically used it only as a diary and not for calls or messages. In my head, I’d rather deal with someone in person, by which I mean online, than on the ‘phone.

However, the time has come. I can’t do my job without being better connected than I am, so several happy hours have been spent this week visiting the mobile ‘phone shops and trying to talk about what I need.

The deal has been done. I now have a ‘phone that I can skype from, use msn messenger from (why?) and more crucially port my landline number to. This means I can choose to answer my phone at home, at the office, on the mobile, or divert it to voicemail. (I remember the days when it was said that every problem in computing was basically a database problem. Now you could say that every problem, computing or otherwise is a protocol issue).

Anyway, the point is this, the phone company that I signed up with was the only one who had a representative who asked me what I really needed. Furthermore, when I told him I wanted to be able to port my landline number, he said, “I don’t understand that. Hmm, tell me about it.” Everyone else wanted to sell me something off the shelf that did lots of flashy things but not what I needed.

The person who eventually got the sale did so by beginning a conversation.

Sometimes a conversation seems important but almost impossible. Take the sermon that was preached at my neighbouring Episcopal church on Sunday morning. Wonderful melancholy rhetoric drawn out of some outrageously ignorant theology. But then I would say that, wouldn’t I? You know what I think of that kind of stuff already. But does that get any of us anywhere?

I’ve a lot of presumptions about why this particular preacher was preaching that kind of thing, and apparently being taken seriously by a congregation of lots of intelligent young Scots professionals as he elegantly bashed the Enlightenment firmly on the nose. But do I really understand it? More to the point, does the preacher in question, the bishop of a Nigerian diocese understand me? Can he know what experience I have of a God who is utterly life changing? I wish that were the start of a conversation. However, given than people like me seemed to be being characterised by the preacher as being inspired by Satan, it seems unlikely that the necessary conversation can even start.

I’m starting to realised that the real ecumenical conversations that matter most at the moment are those within denominations not between them.

All kinds of conversations that are needed, are yet to begin.