May 2026

A few days ago, we visited Machu Picchu. Sort of.

We did not travel to Peru to visit the ancient city of the Incas. We went downtown for a virtual reality tour. In this issue, Jan's reflection draws on her actual visit to Machu Picchu nearly 20 years ago, while Bill reflects on the virtual reality experience.

"Memory, it has been said, is one of the most beautiful realities of the soul. Since the body itself is so linked into the visual sense, it often does not recognize memory as the place where the past is gathered."

Ancient cultures, like Machu Picchu, can be enjoyed as if existing today, through modern technology, like Feverup's Virtuality Reality experience temporarily in San Antonio. So real, I was pleased that the llama I bumped into didn't bite me. On my 2008 visit to the real ruins in Peru, we were warned that we were unwelcome visitors in llamas' land.

Much of the VR experience closely resembles my soul memories of Peru's Machu Picchu. The VR tour began with an overview followed by ceremonial sites: The Temple of the Sun, Temple of the Condor, and Temple of the Three Windows.

We virtually walked over lush terraces, beside families working and preparing dinners, and on moving rocks at the edge of the mountain. We visited the Andean citadel from 450 years ago to experience this Incan culture.

The VR tour was breathtaking but memories of my 2008 experience arose to add flesh, smells, and spiritual realities to the VR tour. As I stood in the VR Temple of the Condor, those memories of their ancient epiphanies reawakened. I felt something real and ineffable. I knew something 'sacred' had happened there.

My 2008 Machu Picchu tour was sponsored by Spiritual Directors International. During the entire tour in Peru, we shared daily prayer rituals and activities like Tai Chi on an 11,150 ft mountain's edge mesa. Our Machu Picchu excursion was only one day, but our day's exploration was buoyed by the 2-week spiritual experience. As good as it was, no VR can compare with the soul's memory-making of the mountaintop awe and wonder, silence and stillness.

Did Moses have a mountaintop experience of awe and wonder, silence and stillness? Today on the Feast of the Holy Trinity, we remember Moses' conversation with God on Mount Sinai. "'The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity." Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship." (Ex 34:8) Let us take a moment today to plumb our soul-memories of the times God was with us; the merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.

--Jan

I braced myself against the sudden motion, widening my stance as the stones beneath my feet began to shift and move. Only there were no stones, just linoleum tile. There was no motion. And the llama who walked up behind me, poking his head over my shoulder, was not real.

This “trip” to Machu Picchu was my first experience with virtual reality. It was amazing, wonderful, disturbing and upsetting.

On the one hand, everything was clearly artificial. (Our flying cartoon robot guide was the first clue!) On the other hand, it seemed shockingly real: I had to take a deep breath and calm my nerves before walking up to the very edge of a cliff that appeared to fall away hundreds of feet into the abyss.

Birds flew overhead. Flickering firelight showed through windows in the stone walls. I saw workers carrying loads and priests conducting rituals. It all seemed very real. What seemed less real, however, were the people actually on the tour with me.

I could tell where Jan was, but she was only a hazy outline, with her name perched like a label above her head. The other couple with us had no names, no faces. The llama peeking over my shoulder appeared far more substantial, more present, than they.

And that is what disturbs me about virtual reality. In the words of Brenda Laurel, “Virtual environments will redefine what it means to be present.” Thanks to modern technology (such as Zoom or FaceTime), I can be present to friends who are thousands of miles away, at least to some degree. But that same technology can make me less present to people in the same room, as everyone who has spent time with someone lost in scrolling through their cell phone knows.

Although Jan and I went together on the virtual reality tour of Machu Picchu, we did not truly share the experience. I could not point and say, “Look there!” We could not see the expression on each other’s faces. We were each locked into our own headset, experiencing a virtual reality where the other was hardly present.

Jesus calls us to love one another as he has loved us. As Eugene Peterson puts it in his paraphrase of Luke 6:35-36, “Live out [your] God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously….” To do so, we have to be present with one another.

--by Bill

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