Ask the universe...

Last night I was looking at my site meter deal and discovered that someone in Oberasach Germany had stumbled upon my blog after googling "why is my life so boring". wow. It is amazing what role the internet is increasingly beginning to take in the lives of people. That which connects us to one another also isolates us and when we feel lonely, lost, or depressed we turn to the internet only to be sucked into its vacuous nothingness resulting in further isolation and increased feelings of blahh.

Take for example a site like Facebook, which connects you to people who under normal conditions you would not have any contact with, resulting in the neglect of those with whom you daily interact. There is someting beautiful about losing contact with the people from our past that forces us to develop relationships with the people of our present. When the relationships of the past are not allowed to die as they naturally would under any normal circumstances then the potential relationships of our present are never cultivated. If you ended up in the hospital tonight how many of the 400 people that you are friends with on Facebook would come to visit you? Chances are they would have no idea what you were going through unless of course your cellphone worked and you were capable of mobile updates. (I bet even if you did they still wouldn't come to see you, at best they would post something on your wall)

But you know what is intersting? Very rarely will somebody update when things are not good when they are wounded or when they are sad or hurting or worried. We leave our baggage off our site posting instead pithy statements about how much fun we are having and proving it of course with our countless photo albums of our awesomeness. But it is our baggage, and those with whom we share it that is the substance of real relationships. We are social creatures and the hunger for community is in the fabric of our being. Imagine how much more meaningful the relationships we have with those with whom we interact on a daily basis would be if we channeled the same amount of time and energy into cultivating them as we do maintaining our social networking sites?

I post these observations as one who does not maintain a Facebook page. That is not to say that I have totally awesome deep frienships becuase of it. Also in no way am I suggsting that I have frienship nailed. Quite the contrary! I struggle with real vulnerable relationships. But I do want to be better about caring for those whom God has placed in my life today and to learn how to be vulnerable and to walk with one another through all of life's ups and downs.