evlogia and Letters of Grace

The past week has been a wonderful time with family.  During that period, I had a lot of travel time which allowed me to listen to a number of wonderful lectures from the Circe Institute.  Specifically, I have been listening to the lectures from the 2009 conference, entitled "A Contemplation of Nature."  For those of you who heard Kern speak at the St. Emmelia conference, you will realize this goes far deeper than a simple discussion of "nature" in terms of the outdoors.  At the same time, there were many beautiful talks that dealt with physical nature, and how our disconnect with God's creation has led to much of our cultural downfall.  I came back full of post ideas, concerning a return to the agrarian life, the importance of nature in our culture, and how our "global community" has destroyed the true community relationships that used to exist a century ago.  I have long been convinced of the detrimental aspects of social networking, and these feelings were further strengthened by talks which related the downfall of grammar to the downfall of human relationship and our inability to truly communicate with each other.  With all of those ideas swirling in my head, I also came home to a handful of emails and a phone call with a friend.  Having had no connection to internet for a week, I was blissfully ignorant of the firestorm occuring over Mary's decision to pull back.  After a long conversation with her, and a look at some chat boards, I find it ironic.  Once again, technology interferes with relationship.  Somehow, this internet gives us a false feeling of global community.  And while I understand the desire to connect with others, to learn from others, to communicate with others, I often feel the internet is not the solution.  When I see someone who has given far more than she should, far more than she can sometimes, I feel grateful.  And I feel saddened when I see that there are those who do not feel grateful, but rather entitled.  It scares me.  I find it disturbing that some would ignore the wishes of someone who has shared so much of herself.  I find it sad that people feel it is okay to distribute that which is not theirs in a way in which it is was not intended.  More than anything, I feel sorry that if people are not respectful of a person's wishes, it may result in far greater losses.  As of now, Letters of Grace remains.  I stand firm in the desire to see it finished.  At the same time, I do not wish for my family to suffer, or for the other contributors of the project to suffer in a pressure to finish for others.  What others need to understand, is that if the intellectual property of evlogia is not respected, then it may necessitate the removal of all sites - including Letters of Grace.  This is the last thing I want to see happen.  Too much time and love has gone into this project.  But, it is her right to pull down her own site, and if people continue to ignore her rights and attempt to load her materials to other sites, everything will have to go.