Wonderfully and Fearfully made

From the Manse....

A few weeks ago, Liz and I along with some friends went to the Abba Arena in Stratford, East London situated within the Olympic Park. Here we experienced the Abba Voyage "a concert like no other" as the publicity proudly boasts.

"Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid have created the kind of concert they always wanted, performing for their fans at their very best: as digital versions of themselves backed by today's finest musicians. Blurring the lines between the physical and digital, see the magic of ABBA brought to life using the latest in motion capture technology. It's the greatest ABBA performance the world has never seen. Until now."

Alongside real, live musicians, holograms and digital wizardry brought Abba to life in a mind boggling, sensory experience. It was a great show and we really enjoyed it. Along with the music, we marvelled at what modern technology is now able to do, and wondered what the next decade might bring.

As incredible as the digital projections were, if you looked really carefully they still lacked that final touch of humanity, of being truly human that cannot so easily be digitally quantified or copied..... but they weren't far off at all!

As the digital, virtual world impinges more and more on our lives and concerns continue to be raised about the impact of AI there will no doubt be much discussion around the issues of ethics and questions about reality. The concert raised all sorts of questions for me as to what it means to be human as well as what it means to be made in the image of God.

As we made our way home, with songs such as "Waterloo" and "Dancing Queen" going round in my head, I was also conscious of some well known and loved words from Psalm 139;
"For it was you who formed my inward parts;
    you knit me together in my mother's womb. 
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
    Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
    My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
    all the days that were formed for me,
    when none of them as yet existed."

With love and God Bless

Keith