Living in the

“GoogleWhack” Moment

 

How awesome is this place!

This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!

(Genesis 28:17)

 

 

A sermon by Siegfried S. Johnson on 15th Sunday after Pentecost, September 9, 2007

Volume 2 Number 10

First United Methodist Church, 605 West 6^th Street, Mountain Home, Arkansas 72653

 

 

Surely by now nearly everyone, even the computer illiterate, know the name Google.  I wonder, though, how many have heard of Googlewhacking?  Those who have may have run across phrases like these -- squiggly penknifes, interspousal candygrams, spreadably splashed, ambidextrous scallywags -- phrases that don’t surface in everyday conversation, but in a geekish sort of way, are cool to the extreme.  Googlewhacks are two word combinations appearing only once in a Google search of billions of webpages.   Googlewhacking is a wonderfully educational way to waste time on the Internet.  Simply log on to google.com, a search engine that scours the length and breadth of the World Wide Web, and type in two words (no punctuation allowed).  What you’re seeking is a word pair for which Google finds only one result.  If Google shows results “1 – 1 of 1,” you win, and can add your Googlewhack to an online collection called, The Whack Stack!  At Google the motto is, “The Search for the One.”

 

Simple to play?  Yes.  Not so simple, though, to find a legitimate Googlewhack.  I should know.  I’ve tried.  I began with our text’s two-word combo, Jacob’s Ladder.  Google took 0.14 seconds to display Results 1 – 10 of 907,000 -- a long way from a Googlewhack!  906,999 to be exact.

 

I started thinking about Googlewhacking while preparing my sermon three weeks ago, which was titled Optative Theology.  I told you I had coined that phrase (think, Optimistic Theology) while in Greek class during seminary in1982.  In preparation for the sermon I typed the two words into the Google bar to see if anyone was using the phrase.  Hardly.  It was a Googlewhack!

 

Well, truth be told, I only thought I had a Googlewhack.  I had typed the words in with quotation marks, a Googlewhacking no-no.  Removing the quotes, Optative Theology generated 11,100 results (Guess I only thought I had coined the term). 

 

Still a long way from a Googlewhack, I was tempted to give up, but the game was Oddly Alluring.  Oddly Alluring, by the way, generated 137,000 results.  I opened the dictionary and used the finger jab technique.  I found the word, Pondmaster.  To that I began attaching obscure adjectives.  Nonchalant Pondmaster.  1 – 8 of 8.  I was getting close.  Philistine Pondmaster.  1 – 4 of 4.   Jocular Pondmaster.  1 – 2 or 2.  And then it happened.  Sniveling Pondmaster.  And there it was, a Googlewhack,1 – 1 of 1. 

This Information Age phenomenon of Googlewhacking started me thinking about the Search for the One, biblical events that might be classified as one of a kind.  For example, while the phrase, Burning Bush, may not be a Googlewhack (2,980,000 results), the event itself was a 1 – 1 of 1 moment for Moses.  Nothing like it.  One of a kind when Moses met the One true God, the God who said, “I am that I am.”  For Moses, it was a moment when the veil of separation between the earthly and divine worlds was somehow thinned, sheer, allowing Moses to peek into a dimension of experience where natural laws don’t hold sway.

 

Another example is Paul’s experience of being caught up into the Third Heaven.  Third Heaven produced 3,050,000 web references.  But for Paul, it was a 1 - 1 of 1 Moment, an inexpressible experience of God in which he discovered a whole Other dimension to reality. 

 

Moses at the Burning Bush.  Paul in the Third Heaven.  We might go on.  Elijah’s fiery chariot.  David’s smooth stone as he faced Goliath.  Jericho’s walls which were felled by God under Joshua’s command.  The fiery tongues of Pentecost as the Holy Spirit fell upon the church.  Googlewhack moments all, when another dimension to reality became manifest.

 

I settled, though, on Jacob’s Ladder, a ladder which, in Jacob’s dream, connected heaven and earth.  He awoke to say, “How awesome is this place!  Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.  This is none other than the House of God, and this is the Gate of Heaven.”   Jacob discovered an Other dimension of reality, not quite sure if his feet were still anchored on earth or, if he had somehow been swept into heaven.  This was a threshold moment, a link, an in-between place, a crossing-over place between our molecular world and the divine world of spirit.

 

We shouldn’t think of these moments when the veil to God’s presence is pulled back as being the experience solely of biblical persons.  We all have impactful, transformational moments in our lives possessing a sacred quality rendering them beyond precious, rendering them holy.  I lived through one this week, the birth of our second granddaughter, Sarah Evelyn.  For our family this was a 1 – 1 of 1 Moment. 

 

Jacob, experiencing this unique moment, was moved to name it (Beth-el, Hebrew for, House of God), and to fashion around it a ritual of meaning (pouring oil on the rock to consecrate the spot).  God’s promises to Jacob, a prominent feature of the story, prompted Jacob to respond with his own promise.  This is precisely how Googlewhack moments impact us.  We name those moments, and fashion rituals around them to remind us of the sacred quality of the moment.  With cameras flashing, the event of Sarah Evelyn’s birth was recorded, marking it forever as sacred to our family.  Through ritual, major steps along the way of her life will be named and marked with ritual – baptism, confirmation, marriage, etc. 

 

With liturgy and from the heart, a family brings a child for baptism to receive God’s promise, and God’s promise prompts us to respond with promises of our own.  A bride crossing the threshold of the church to walk to the altar, where she will leave behind one mode of living, singleness, entering the married state by both receiving and offering promises.   I have often used this text as a wedding homily, to point out to the couple standing before me, “How Awesome Is This Place!”  I invite them to look around, to experience this Moment, to wonder if their feet are firmly anchored on earth, or somehow if they have one foot in heaven.  

Of course, not all Googlewhack moments are marked and ritualized with music and ceremony.  Some, perhaps the most precious of all, are private, unique moments in which we sense a powerful Something we can’t articulate.  We feel it, but how do we say it?  We sense we’ve stepped into a threshold of Awareness.  Such moments may come unexpectedly -- while reading or listening to music, worshiping or working, driving a car or in a moment of laughter.  Express it we cannot.  Neither, though, could we deny this unique moment of inspiration when time seems to stand still, when we are invited to Live in the Googlewhack Moment, to recognize a 1 - 1 of 1 experience when we feel ourselves dissolved into beauty and inspiration -- touched by God, and touching God.

 

In such moments we sense that we have experienced a linking of heaven and earth.  In our Search for the One we realize that we are 1 with the One, that we ourselves are that Ladder, comprised of both Spirit (our divine origin) and Earth (from dust to dust).  Body and spirit, we engage both realms, even as did Christ, the Logos made Flesh.  

 

Describe such a Moment of Awareness?  No.  The place is wordless and ineffable, this place where the heart is enchanted, this place of sudden understanding and peace leading us to say, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” 

 

Wonder if God Googlewhacks?  I don’t know, but my guess is that when God thinks of you – though you may be 1 in 6 billion or so on planet Earth, each of us on God’s screen is 1 - 1 of 1.  This is true in a theological sense, the design of redemptive love expressed so eloquently by Jesus in the parable of the 99 sheep.  One lost, the Shepherd goes in Search for the One, and finding it places it over his shoulders and returns rejoicing.  So it is, Jesus says, that heaven rejoices over the 1 who repents.  This is the Jesus of whom it is said by Luke, “he came to seek and to save that (even the 1 – 1 of 1?) which was lost.” 

 

Imagine.  You are God’s Googlewhack Moment.  1 – 1 of 1.  

 

Sources:

My interest in using Googlewhacking as a sermon theme was prompted by a sermon in HOMILETICS (Volume 14, Number 5) titled, “A Googlewhack God.”  While the editors took the thought in an entirely different direction than I chose, I found it a provocative and fun, up-to-date way to connect with our computer savvy congregation.

 

Several essays in PARABOLA (Volume 25, Number 1, Spring 2000, Threshold) were used in the development of this sermon, including:  “Focus,” by David Appelbaum, editor; “The Flaming Door,” by Mara Freeman; “Information Ecology,” by David Rothenberg; and “The Threshing Place,” by Doug Thorpe.

 

Another issue of PARABOLA (Volume 27, Number 3, Fall 2002, Grace) included an essay I found useful and quotable:  “Through Beauty,” by Rebecca Robison.