Compresence

Christian theologians talk a lot about God's "presence". Our hymns talk a lot about God's "presence". But what does that mean?

Since God is not a physical being, he can't be physically present. There are ways he can symbolically manifest himself. And in the Incarnation, there's a sense in which God is indirectly present–via the union of the Son with a body (and soul). 

God can by psychologically present in human minds. Revelatory dreams are a stock example. 

But let's explore the concept of compresence from a different angle. When I was a young boy my parents had a Christmas Eve tradition. Before we headed off to the midnight candlelight service, they'd play an old LP of lessons and carols by King's College Chapel. 

So there's a sense in which the Anglican Christmas service entered my space. The service was compresent with my location. 

The chapel wasn't physically present in my living room. The choristers weren't physically present in my living room. Their presence was invisible and intangible. 

But it was a performance from another time and place, entering my time and place. A unique, unrepeatable live performance, on a particular day and hour which, because it was recorded, could be repeated at a different time and place, like two parallel, converging timelines. Voices from the past, speaking in the present. Voices from one location, heard at another location. A kind of bilocation, thanks to technology. As if it was piped in from another world.