Between Bytes and Blessings: Rediscovering Community in a Fractured World

If last week’s conversation with Dr. Lori Schoessler reminded us that healing is communal, this week takes us on a pilgrimage of a different kind—a journey into the world of music, technology, and the quiet service that knits the fabric of belonging.

As Created in the Image of God continues, I am struck by how each encounter—whether in a counseling office, a family kitchen, or a nursing home lit by the blue glow of a tablet—brings me back to the same urgent question:

What does real spiritual community look like, when so much of life is lived alone, or online?

My guest this week, the singular Dominic Pedig, bridges continents, generations, and genres. He specializes in patient, humorous tech support for elders (“helping those old dogs learn new tricks”), creates music with a spiritual pulse (with the assistance of AI), and builds community not with slogans or grand gestures, but with small acts of presence—the kind that often go unnoticed but shape destinies for decades to come.

Grandparents and the Lost Art of Transmission

Dominic’s story is, on its surface, unspectacular—an ordinary tale of parental fracture, early solitude, and the undervalued heroism of grandparents.

But in the fragments of his early years, I began to see the bones of community that still uphold so much of the world:

“That’s where I also got my... ability to be who I am today and my... morals... that’s where I got to say ‘thank you grandma my grandpa’. That you’ve been there for me, because it was like if I remember like one weekend you were at the one grandmother, the other you’re at the other... That’s like where I also got my... morals and stuff like they teach me the most that make out myself now...”

It calls to mind the scriptural logic of transmission:

“The aged women likewise... may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children.” (Titus 2:3–4)

The Bahá’í Writings reinforce this sacred relay from heart to heart, not by decree, but by example:

“Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures...”

Community, then, is neither accident nor nostalgia; it is work, a slow bequeathing of treasures, often in kitchens and phone calls, sometimes with a half-broken television remote in hand.

Kindness on the Circuit: Tech Support as Ministry

Somewhere along the way, we started treating technology as the dividing line between the “asleep” and the “awake”—those who get the joke and those left behind.

Dominic refuses this script, deploying patience and wry humor as his tools of re-enchantment in a world that wants to run faster than some of us can follow.

He put it best:

“If you just get a little thank you back from Grandma and you're really happy... if you have five minutes for them and talk a bit, it’s still for them a pleasure. And if you give them good vibes from you, you’re coming back and they’re happy and saying how are you man or I glad to see you and just give them a warm warm feeling.”

The apostle James grounds such unsung care in the heart of living faith:

“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” (James 1:27)

Or as the Baha’i teachings charge us:

“Let deeds, not words, be your adorning.”

“Blessed is he who mingleth with all men in a spirit of utmost kindliness and love.”

Dominic’s “good vibes” are not just mood—they are sacrament, a microclimate in which the elderly (and, let’s be honest, the rest of us) can breathe easy and remember we belong.

Music as Communion, Not Commodity

It would be tempting to see Dominic’s music—over 10,000 tracks written, more than a hundred released in the last year—as mere output, content engineered for the Spotify swarm. But his intention is rooted elsewhere:

“When I do music it is with spiritual background… this hip-hop influence - if you’re growing older of course you’re also thinking what are they talking about there - violence and stuff - then you realize this is actually not good for you - listening to this… I put my own lyrics, my own good vibe, and listening to this I feel so much better.”

Here, music is not transaction but a spiritual offering, as indicated in the Baha’i Writings:

“We, verily, have made music as a ladder for your souls, a means whereby they may be lifted up unto the realm on high…”

A “good vibe” song, a gentle lyric, or a beat co-composed by man, machinery, and in Dominic’s case - also his dogs—it all adds up to a small, very real, worship.

“Where Two or Three Are Gathered”—The Digital Minyan

But what, finally, is this thing we call community in a time of screens, scarcity, and frailty? I keep returning to a teaching that has shaped every episode, every encounter:

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20)

Or, as Bahá’u’lláh placed the question in the context of a changing world:

“Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration. The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require.”

The table may be set with bread or binary code, the assembly may form in a church, or on a browser window—but the sacredness emerges wherever a handful risk authentic presence. Dominic, with his “patience, kindness, and a good dose of humor,” calls us back to the real work: to show up, love, help, laugh, and wait for the blessing that always, eventually, arrives.

Continuing the Conversation

Next week’s journey brings us conversation with Nikki Anarado of Prepare to Be Pursued, who brings the ancient Book of Ruth into the dating world, offering hope and wisdom for those on the margins of love. As I previewed, sometimes “you have to go back to go forward.” “There are... things that are too wonderful for me to comprehend... the way of a man with a maid.” (Proverbs 30:18–19)

If you have found yourself between worlds—between family and faith, tradition and technology, exile and home—know you are not alone. Community is made, again and again, whenever one person, moved by love or even duty, brings light to the screen or song to the silence.

If you’ve been encouraged—by this story, by last week’s healing with Dr. Lori, or by the relentless work it takes to build anything worth keeping—join the conversation, subscribe (consider a paid subscription) and share the good vibes, or simply pass it along to someone waiting to be seen.

You are created in the image of God. And God loves His creation.

With gratitude,
Wade Fransson

Bahá’í References Cited: