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Facebooking Friends

The Lord would speak to Moses face to face,

as a man speaks with his friend.

Exodus 33:11

Have you noticed that there is precious little face-to-face communication between friends these days?  After all, we are all so busy.  We will text each other, Twitter, Facebook, email, and perhaps take the time to call.  But get together?  Mano a mano?  No, that doesn't happen very often for many people.

I tried Twitter once or twice.  It just didn't make much sense to me.  I don't know very many people who want to read little snippets of what I think throughout the day.  My life just isn't that exciting.  I text all the time - especially my children, but I also find myself texting colleagues, students and friends.  There is something so immediate about texting.  I utilize e-mail with students, colleagues, and contacts, but only occasionally with friends.  And then there is Facebook.  

I am the administrator of the Facebook page for the church where I work, and have a personal page myself. I can post pictures (of myself and others), share videos, pictures and puzzles that I have found, talk about what I am doing at any particular moment (a la Twitter), and yak back and forth with anyone also online at any precise moment.  Facebook can actually make me feel like I am really keeping up with people by allowing me to view their life through the window of their page.  I can remark on some aspect of their daily grind if I so choose, or push the "Like" button as if I am saying "YAY!!"  There is something comforting about being able to view what other people are doing online, but there is something horribly impersonal about it as well.

I have 313 friends on Facebook.  To be frank, I don't think I even know 313 people in this world, so how in the world do all these people know me?  Some of them are my students, some of them are colleagues or acquaintances from work, and some of them are just "friend collectors."  I suspect it might be time to go through my list of "friends" and whittle it down to those who actually know me and care about me as a person - those who are truly my friends.

God understands the value of speaking face to face - of talking together with a friend in intimate conversation.  He hob-nobbed with Adam and Eve in the Garden and chatted up Moses in the cleft of a rock.  God came as a man to earth in the person of Jesus Christ and gathered twelve close friends into His inner circle. Eventually He had a whole cadre of men and women followers that He interacted with on a daily basis.  For God and for us, physically coming together for fellowship and avid conversation is what friendship is all about. 

Taking What's Yours

Keep your lives free from the love of money 

and be content with what you have.

Hebrews 13:5

Staten Island was one of the hard-hit areas of New England that suffered from the huge storm surge of Hurricane Sandy.  Flooding is widespread, and many families lost everything that was in the first floor of their homes. After the storm was over, they lost a great deal more - at times, at the hands of their neighbors.  While the residents are slogging through waist-deep water trying to salvage anything from their ravaged homes, they are losing further personal property from looting.

One man told CNN that his neighbors were roaming from house to house, banging on doors, and yelling to see if anyone was home.  If they got no response, they busted into the home and took everything they could carry.  A retired UPS truck driver had been collecting tools and other equipment to start a small engine repair business.  He heard the men in the neighborhood yelling and banging on doors.  He shouted out his window at them, but they wdid not respond.  In the morning, he found that they had pushed over his shed and stolen every useable tool and piece of equipment.  There was nothing of value left.

I have never understood the thought process of any person who believes that they are entitled to take whatever they can get, whether it belongs to them or not.  There are times when it seems that responsibility, respect and decency are fast disappearing from our society.  To lose your possessions to a massive storm is one thing; to lose your possessions to the selfish thievery of your neighbors is quite another.