Oh, the conveniences of the Internet (and their social and cognitive cost)

I'm not in the inner circle of the group of friends who staged this wacky photo shoot, but I love knowng people who are good about making time to get together and share their lives, pleasures, and vulnerabilities. This blog post explores some of today's pressures that may tend to push us away from the close friendships we want and need.


In a recent article for Christianity Today, writer Christina Crook describes how she saw a cross-country move that made all of her relationships into long-distance ones also make "staying in touch" come to mean scrolling through other people's social media posts. Or at least the posts of friends and family who were on social media. As for those who were not, her contact practically ended.

Can you relate?

Some of the Crook's writings on this topic over the last few years are a bit Luddite, but her views may have gained greater nuance. She seems to recognize that the tools we let hurt us aren't inherently bad, just troublesome when we don't recognize how they have affected us. She quotes former Google insider Tristan Harris who points out, "When you use technology, you have goals. When you land on YouTube, it doesn't know any of those goals. It has one goal, which is to make you forget those goals that you have."

It was while working at Google that Harris observed how many resources were being put into "making more addicting products by manipulating the vulnerabilities of its users."

Ouch. If we are to "throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles," and "run with perseverance the race marked out for us" (Hebrews 12:1-2), we need to consider what the easy and convenient communication strategies we've embraced are really costing us.

Me, I love efficiency and convenience. I consistently choose task over relationship, regret it, and do it again. So I appreciate Crook's warning and ideas for pursuing relationships in time-consuming, off-line ways instead of just the easy, online ones.

A few weeks ago our daughter got married. She and her love made fairly standard vows to one another, vows that were outrageous enough, actually. But they added some of their own. I listened with interest. Some have already been kept. "I will play video games with you... I will go see the [Grateful] Dead with you," she told him. But she also said, "I will not use your weaknesses against you," and I think that one will be harder to keep.

Would that we all kept that promise in our closest relationships. It's worth committing to, and worth trying again when we fail. But how distressing it is that the games we play, our bosses and those who work for us, companies we patronize, and the media channels we enlist or consume seem to almost systematically use our vulnerabilities against us. As for the social media channels, though they can certainly be harnessed for good, they tend to distract us from our values, priorities, and goals and work to make us forget them.

It's pretty sick, isn't it? What will we do about it?

"...How have we been co-opted into society’s push for productivity over presence, and what have we lost in the process?" asks Christina Crook "...The inefficient way is also the way to love, and without love we have nothing."

Read the article, Unfriending Convenience.

Great Conversation

“There is nothing that makes me happier than sitting around the dinner table and talking until the candles are burned down.”  ― Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet 

I used to say that nothing makes me happier than a good, meaty conversation. 

As the years have gone by, though, I have felt less and less able to pull my own weight in conversation. 

I run out of things to say or ask the other person about. Maybe I'm just not interesting enough? Have I stopped reading, learning, and growing, so I have nothing to bring to the table?

Whatever it is, when I'm on the spot, I often can't think of a way to take the talk from "small talk" to at least "medium talk," if that's a thing.  

Part of the problem may be that the conversations that dash my hopes are often one on one. The ideal number of people for a discussion that is simultaneously relaxed and stimulating, I propose (or at least prefer), is four. In a group of three to five, no one need carry the conversational ball alone, yet there's space for everyone to have their say. My new team at work is a team of four, and that feels just right.

Do you have any strategies for stimulating great conversations? What works for you?

"Many drowning victims go down unheard"

In a recent newsletter, a friend of mine serving in sort of a pastoral role overseas described an "aha!" moment he had when reading about how people people drown:

"While TV and movies typically depict drowning victims thrashing about, yelling for help and waving arms to get the attention of anyone who can help, in reality the opposite is generally true. When someone is drowning, they struggle quietly, with little energy to attract attention as their body and mind instinctively act to reserve energy just to try to keep afloat. In fact, there are many victims of drowning who are within earshot and perhaps even within reach of someone who could help but who isn’t even aware that someone is in trouble. With no energy to hold up that arm to signal that they’re in trouble, many drowning victims go down unheard, unseen, and sadly, unhelped."

(Read an article about this here.)

So basically, when people are most in trouble may be when they are the least able to cry out for the help that they need. See an analogy that goes beyond the beach or pool? Ever seen it in your own life? What are the applications to us for our lives and ministry? There could be people near us who are close to going under but can't get our attention. How might we train ourselves to be better lifeguards, more alert to the subtle signs that someone's in trouble, and prepared to take the initiative to follow through with a response?

Crazy about You

Ever feel like the Twitter fail whale?

"Dear whomever may be reading this. Even though you may not believe me, somebody out there is crazy about you." So says Twitter. This was one of the most popular tweets recently.

Twitter does rather lend itself toward bumper-sticker statements, doesn't it? So, do we believe it? Should we? Is it true? Seems more wishful than reasonable. Surely not everyone - even everyone reading this - has someone who is crazy about them. But I suppose that many of us, though well loved, fail to receive from that love the strength and joy that might be ours. We choose instead to look on the dark side of things and live in bitterness rather than gratitude.  

"And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." (John 1:5)

Does "crazy about you" imply romance? Can't say I have such a person in my life: a mate who delight in me being me, who love my heart and the way my mind works. Sometimes, the possibility that such a relationship could come together seems impossible to me.

But as an experiment, I started a mental list. A list of people who are crazy about me (I think). Pretty encouraging. Unless I actually am crazy and/or mistaken, it's a pretty long list. I am rich in friends. (Among other things this gives me hope of someday making a match.)

Either way, I am deeply blessed. Especially with the Creator and Sustainer of the universe topping my fan list. Amazing!

Got 20 minutes to think about what holds you back from giving and receiving love? Check out this great TED talk. As I listened to it I realized that while I feel I still have a long way to go, by God's grace I've experienced a lot of what it means to be what Brene calls "wholehearted."

See also my post on Counseling (10/29/10).

In defense of talking to other people

For all that we hear that diversity is a good thing, that it's better for the world that we're all a little different and each bring another flavor to the human potluck, it can be hard to accept that other people don't like or care about the things that - to you or to me - seem, well, ultimate. Why don't they "get" it?

I think this is one of the great causes of conflict in our world: We all share huge patches of common ground and may hold the same opinions about many things but we don't agree about what things actually matter.

How do you respond when you realize anew that most other people don't think and care like you do about money, politics, the environment, faith, or family?

With that as a disclaimer, I just wanted to say: I don't "get" people who don't seem to want or need relationships with other people, who don't find human beings precious and fascinating and ultimately the most interesting and valuable thing under the sun.

So, when it comes to relating to other people, I'd like to speak up on behalf of taking risks to seek out relationships. Make it your habit to try to get to know people. Go to that social event, talk to strangers, and treat the person behind the counter like a human being and not an object; see what happens. You might really blow it, I know. Or they might. They might hurt you. But you'll never find out if you limit yourself to the people you already know, and/or the fake (but safe) one-way relationships you can have with celebrities and people on TV and in other media.

Most of us fear the awkwardness of risking relationship with people who might be really different from us. But they may not be as different as you think.

I saw a kid at church wearing a T-shirt that said "awkward is awesome." Could be. Only a willingness to step out into awkwardness can make way for awesomeness. Here's my hunch: You will never experience the best that life has to offer if you don't engage with other people on this planet.

If I ever end up writing my book about listening, this will be why. I hate to see so many people missing out. Missing out on what they could get out of life; missing out on what they could give others. A few adjustments of perspective and practice could make all the difference.

Book of Letters

Before the modern reality show,
there was "This Is Your Life."
Do you remember it?

L. wanted to throw me a birthday party. She told me months in advance, and asked me to make a list of 12-15 people to invite. Tricky, that; I wanted people from different parts of my life, but not such a diverse crowd that they wouldn’t feel connected to one another. I didn’t want to hurt someone by including one person and leaving out another. I decided to just invite women this time and made sure that while nobody knew all the others (except me), everyone would be able to look around and see someone (besides me) whom she knew.

I made my list, and we set the place and time, and L. took it from there. I was a little nervous, especially after she asked me to track down two people who hadn’t acknowledged any of her emails. Just two, but they didn’t respond to my messages either. I wondered how many others had said “no,” or “maybe.” But I thought perhaps L. had left me out of the communication loop on purpose, that she’d asked them to prepare for the event in a certain way or bring something specific to this event as a surprise, and didn’t want me to know.

The Art of Letter Writing

Sure enough. She had asked each one of them to write me a letter. This is something we had done for some of the girls in our community when they turned 13: words of wisdom. Love it. I wish people still wrote letters. I love getting them, love writing them, but these days the practice seems almost extinct. 

In fact, L. had not only asked the women who came to the party to write letters (and read them to me aloud), she had also tracked down all kinds of mutual friends, relatives, and other significant people in my life and asked them to send her a message for me. She printed out the letters on colored stationery and assembled them into a album. More than 50 letters. She made me a book of letters! What fun. This Is Your Life meets The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

Some of the letters are long, some short, some serious, some hilarious. Full of stories, some I'd forgotten, and each showing the unique character of the writer. What a treasure. I’m delighted. And I’m also glad we did this the Saturday before the big day, instead of after. Now when people tell me to have a wonderful birthday, I can smile, knowing I already have.

L. pictured me taking the album to Tattered Cover (our excellent independent bookstore) and reading them while enjoying a pot of tea, on the actual day I turn, um, yes, 40. Well, who can resist? I think I've skimmed them all. I will sit down and look at them all more closely again, then, and leisurely write my thank-you notes. The treasure is mine to enjoy again and again.

A Gift of Words

Many of the people who wrote structured their letters around words. Words for my birthday! What fun. I love words. And they knew it, because I'd taught them how to write newsletters, marked up their copy as an editor, or helped them catch up with me at Speed Scrabble. Here’s a word from L’s husband J. I’m pretty certain he coined it for the occasion.

"Here are a few of the things I appreciate about the person God has made you," he began.

Megadabblifly, def. 2?

"…You are a multi-tasker, not a multi-slacker. I don't think I've known many people who enjoy the art of "dabbling" as much as you. But you don't just dabble, you mega-dabblifly! 

"(Def. Megadabblifly: adj. 1. The rare capacity to be involved in many pursuits and projects and still make a significant and worthwhile contribution to each. 2. A state-of-being experienced by very large flies in the winter months in which they seem stupefied by cold temperatures and fly very slowly and lazily around the room.)

"Of course in your case I refer to definition #1."

Whew!

Bridging Long Distances

So, the "phone" thing. Aaaaaaaggggaaaaain. Are you tired of hearing about me being handicapped by a fear and hopeless procrastination about making phone calls?

I don't believe I am as bad about this as I used to be, actually.

Working from home has helped. I packed up my stuff and left the office environment back in February. This, and the six-month sabbatical with which I began, have given me more energy for everything - including taking social initiative. I'm getting out as much as ever before, maybe more. I usually get those two hours a day of people-time that I crave. (Yes, I'm a mild extrovert). And that requires a certain amount of phone calling. I've enjoyed many of those calls. Enjoyed, too, my contact with people who are willing to communicate and coordinate plans through other means. Even when getting on the phone makes more "sense."

Because making phone calls is still a hard thing. Spent a good chunk of today intending to call a stranger - but new ministry contact - in Michigan, and am now wondering what I'll say to explain why I didn't call. I had said I would! The truth - that I was scared - seems rather laughable. I can't imagine saying that to someone I've never even met.

Tomorrow, I have a call scheduled with the man I've asked to be my supervisor. He works in the home office in Florida. Lovely man. I'm not afraid to talk to him. But I'm a bit afraid he's going to say "I'll supervise you, and the main way I see us staying in touch is over the phone."

That would be like telling me, "I'll mentor you, but I want to do it all in Spanish." 

Aaaarrrgghhhh, sometimes my weakness seem as if they will be my undoing!

When Being a Mobilizer Means Saying Goodbye

Last weekend I traveled to another part of the state to say goodbye to some friends with whom my life has been intertwined for several years. A month from now both families are heading overseas. One will work at an orphanage in a rough and remote part of Africa. The other will pastor in the expat community of a large, cosmopolitan Asian city. Their situations couldn’t be more different. This was their last chance to be together before two of the grown children take off a few days from now to begin a language program in what will be their parents’ new home.

It was a privilege for S. and I to be with them. As I said, our lives are intertwined, and our presence made a good excuse for a party. We had dinner together and caught each other up on our news and struggles and hopes, then prayed for one another as we get ready to head our different directions. It was, what? the sixth or seventh such gathering I’ve had with various overlapping groups of international friends just this summer, not counting the one-on-ones.

Sometimes this aspect of my way of life seems so cool. I have a network of wonderful friends and colleagues all over the world! And while I may not see some of them for years at a time, many of them come through my town every time they are in the U.S. It may be easier to get together with people who just come through town occasionally. I've spent more "quality time" with J., who lives in SE Asia, than B., an equally dear friend who lives in downtown Denver. Though B. and I got together recently as well. It was great to get to know her children. I don't think I'd met the five year old!

On the other hand, with all these international friends, it can seem like just one goodbye after another. To see more and more people I care about scattered in more and more different directions can feel so fragmenting. At times my relational network seems painfully large. What is it about me that keeps giving away pieces of my heart to the people around me? Would it be any easier if I had a permanent companion or two instead of this relay-race of relationships? Or is such loss part-and-parcel of being a mission mobilizer? I don't think my tendency to keep reaching out is something I want to change about myself, but sometimes I count the cost.

Do I want to be the one going off and having adventures? Who would I go with? Going in one direction would mean not going another. Whose "tribe" would I choose to join? Staying where I am may actually be much better for being part of their lives than throwing my lot in with some group of them without the confidence that God had opened that particular door and nudged me through it. Quite possibly that day will come.

Meanwhile, I feel much more connected than some of my friends overseas who are barely keeping their heads above water. They’ve given up a lot, relationally, much more than I have. Many are living far from "home" and in places of social and emotional isolation. “One thing I know for sure,” wrote D. to the church sending them out, “is that if we didn’t sense God’s hand in all of this, we couldn’t bear to leave you just as summer turns to fall here in incredible western Colorado.”

Even with this odd pattern of making new friends all the time and sending them out, I’ve realized I’m not as lonely as I was. I think the sabbatical helped. Not only did I learn to be more comfortable being by myself, I also learned to appreciate some of my local relationships more and saw them grow stronger. What happened in 2007, when so many of the people I cared about left all at once, devastated me. Now, looking back, I realize I don’t feel so alone anymore.

That sure helps when it’s time to say goodbye. 

> See also a couple of related 2009 posts, Traveler and Reunion. 

Nichole's Story

I met "Nichole" the day before I moved into her parents' house. A pretty Uzbek girl in her early 20s, Nichole was fascinated by the foreigners in her city. She had a part-time job working for some of them, friends of mine, and lived in a house not far from them. I needed a local family to live with; her folks could use the rent money. They had the space, and the house was suitable. So we decided to give it a try.

Life hadn't been easy for Nichole. At the insistence of their mutual grandparents she had been married to a cousin in a nearby town several years before. He was carrying on an affair with somebody else and not very interested in the marriage - especially when the child born that first year (right on schedule) turned out to be sickly, not very much fun, and prone to fits of crying. When the baby needed serious medical care and her husband's family would not pay for it, Nichole felt she had no choice but to come home to her parents. They took her back in. After all, she could go out and work, helping to support the family, and they liked having a grandson around. Still, they waited, hoping the marriage could somehow be mended.

Nichole had been badly hurt. She was sure the neighbors disapproved of her. She couldn't see a way out. She had some false ideas about the glamorous life she might lead if she could get out of her neighborhood and live in a big city somewhere, maybe abroad. I knew that these ideas might cause some problems for me, and they did - so much so that I have not stayed in touch.

But clearly she needed someone to be her friend, love her, and help keep her out of trouble. It just so happened that that was what I needed, too.

So began what is probably the most significant cross-cultural relationships I've ever had. There have been others with whom I had more common ground, or learned more from, but nobody I had more fun with than Nichole, nor anyone with whom I experienced more of what differences in culture can really mean - on a gut level.

I found another young woman to be my "formal" Uzbek tutor, but I tried out everything I learned on Nichole and her family and learned as much from them as from anybody. They took me places, and helped me learn my way around, and shared their lives with me. They made sure I was properly clothed and fed and cared for. Without them I would have been helpless, foreign; with them, I could experience at least a bit of what it is to be an insider.

Nichole enjoyed showing me around, sometimes showing me off. And having me around made her feel a bit more glamorous. She enjoyed telling people I was her sister. I remember the time she took me to get my hair cut and then starting boasting to a man in the salon that she and I were with the CIA (!) She liked to carry my laptop computer if we went someplace together - pretending she was an American businesswoman and it was hers. Sometimes we watched movies on it, or listened to music. Before long my Uzbek was better than her English, but we usually communicated in a mix of English and Uzbek words, Uzbek grammar.

I remember sneaking off and buying bananas - an expensive imported food - at the local bazaar, and sharing one with her on a picnic. She was as delighted as I was, having not tasted one of these luxuries in years. It was as good as she remembered, but she stared at the remains for a long time, trying to figure out how characters in the cartoons could slip on a banana peel. How we laughed about that! I was too embarrassed to bring out the other two bananas I had in my bag, having bought one for each of us on the picnic. One seemed like such a splurge.

Sometimes being Nichole's friend presented painful ethical dilemmas. I remember the day she came to me for advice about where to conceal the answer key she'd purchased, a sure way to ace the entrance exams for getting into college. Or her agonizing over how to pay the $5/month to put her son, less than two years old, into preschool - which in that society was considered the right thing to do for kids as soon as they were weaned. And what about her idea to leave her son with her parents, come to America (say, on a tourist visa) and stay to make a new life for herself? She was sure that would be the best for everybody. It seemed to me at the time that if I gave her any encouragement in that direction it would mean betraying her family, as well as betraying my own country.

And sometimes our worldviews clashed. I remember the day I came home and Nichole told me our house was haunted. The witch-doctor had told her mother we had "djinn" and needed to get the place exorcised, basically. I also remember the day her estranged husband came hoping to see his son. Nichole became hysterical, begging me to take him away and hide him in someone else's house so he wouldn't be kidnapped. She thought the father had no right to even see his son if he wasn't going to support the two of them, such as by buying them a flat to live in. This was so different from the way I was used to seeing marriage, custody, and parenting that I didn't know what to make of it.

Enamored with foreign men, she fantasized about meeting one who would marry her and take her away. Never mind that she wasn't, technically, divorced; who needed to know? None of the handful of foreigners in our city was likely to take advantage of her in this but I was afraid she might discover the ways she could meet one on the Internet.

Well, it's been years now. The friends who had arranged for me to live in Nichole's city have all left, and my ability to speak and write the language have waned considerably. I had never answered the many letters appealing for money and other help. So I don't know much about what has happened to Nichole. But last I heard she had reunited with her husband and they were living in the capital.

I hope she is well.

Community in Installments / An Invisible Net

I wrote a while back about the subtle disappointment I feel not to have a best friend or soul mate – and a disappointment in the patterns, circumstances, and choices of my life that mean I do not generally play those roles in anyone else’s life either. I may never be a wife or mom – who knows? But I like to think it would be good to be an aunt, a godmother, a mentor, a more important person in the lives of other than I typically am.

Now I think I’m starting to let go of that disappointment and accept that it’s OK to find community in installments. It may not be ideal. But the roles we play in each other’s lives can be satisfying without the level of commitment and permanence I may have been assuming was necessary. And community can still be sustaining and life-giving when it’s more relay race than marathon.

I was talking about this with my small group at church a while back. More or less the same group of us have been getting together twice a month for several years now. One of the couples has struggled, as I do, with the ways the group and the church as a whole fall short of intimacy. We’ve all experienced enough magic moments of closeness somewhere else, at some other time or with some other group, to know it’s possible. We’ve seen people lay down their lives for us; we’ve known people who have immeasurably enriched our lives.

But close friends move away, and life-long deep friendships are relatively rare, aren’t they?

Maybe we should not place those kinds of expectations on one another or ourselves. Instead, we can rejoice in the magic moments and let ourselves and others off the hook. Let’s try to act on the inner promptings that would move us to love and serve one another, but recognize that human beings are by nature flaky, not so faithful. We should recognize that each of us is part of an invisible net for others, and each of us has an invisible net as well. We want to do the right thing; sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t. It’s OK. Most of the time =someone= will be there to offer the hug or encouraging word, send the card, help with the practical need.

Community in installments can work. And relationships are more about sticktoitiveness than magic.

A friend of mine just experienced a huge betrayal by someone very close to her. I feel like a second-string friend to her and am pretty sure I cannot do much to fill the gap that has been left. Yet I can do something. I can stick with her.

Beautiful Word: Together

I’m no longer living in that college world, surrounded by people who are all my own age and share my interests, and ready to pick up and do anything on a moment’s notice. I do miss it. Even when I was a young adult I was usually on the edges of some sort of crowd or clique, and now there isn’t anything like that for me.

Now the majority of the people around me live lives rooted in family relationships. Especially at church, everything seems oriented around the family. That's a good thing; can’t complain. But sometimes it’s hard to know how to take it, how to respond.

Among the huge advantages of being a single woman who likes and enjoys people are that I can make a way into those networks with relative ease, if I try. Oh, I won’t crash the marriage and parenting class, or join the men’s ministry, but I can make my way into a lot of places and find a welcome there.

In some ways it’s harder than when I was younger, though. I think people in different “demographics” are surprised that I want to be with them. The moms, so focused on relating to other moms and kids, don’t expect me to be interested in their world. But they let me in. And groups of men who aren’t used to having many female friends are often disarmed when they discover that I can speak their language too. I find common ground easily enough with people within a decade or two of my age. And those cross-cultural tricks I’ve learned over the years apply just as well close to home as they do for crossing greater divides. So, my social graces, while still rough around the edges, are more refined than they were. I’m a reasonably good friend-maker.

This next year promises some changes that will force me to be more deliberate about cultivating and maintaining relationships.

I’ll probably write more about that as things unfold.

Togetherness & Belonging

This week has stood in marked contrast to the lonely summer I've been whining about. Think God is trying to show me something?

Wednesday morning I had a rich time with my dear friend Andy and someone he wanted me to meet: a young cross-cultural worker who needed some help and encouragement in the challenges she faces raising support.

Came away encouraged, myself, about the process of inviting people to be involved in what I do. There are certainly lots of different ways to fund ministry, but I love the privilege of participating in this "raising personal support" model - and being on both sides of it. Feel like part of my legacy lives in the lives of those touched through the people I, too, support, in various ministries around the world.

Also, I can say truthfully each time I see Andy that I'm doing great; he and his wife Donna are among those who turn the lights on inside me. There's actually a pretty long list of people who have that effect, but few whom I see on a very regular basis.

So even though I was happy because of my morning appointment, I knew I needed to dig into some darker issues and did some writing to that effect that afternoon. Really brought me down. I slipped into that dark place, tending to believe I am destined to be rejected, excluded, overlooked, or forgotten. Why am I so ready to take on that role of an outsider, as if that's where I belong? Apparently I need some more prayer, more healing, in those areas. I don't think I've been ready to recognize that, to face that, to work through that - until maybe now.

Yet the events of the next few days did much to give me more and more evidence that I am - well, wanted. So very hard for me to believe; I need a lot of convincing. But that very evening I got a call from another favorite friend who hoped I'd join her family for the latest Harry Potter movie; there was a free ticket waiting for me, and how soon could I come?

The next day, friends who live in SE Asia dropped by the office right about the time everyone was leaving. Catching up with them was wonderful. As they left, both my phones were ringing; turned out some other friends from that part of the world were getting together - and would I join them? These are some of my favorite people; I've known most of them since the mid 1990s. I had just heard about the gathering, and might have easily slipped into sadness again about not belonging with them (they were all part of a team). But they made extra efforts to include me, somehow, anyway.

Two warm, spontaneous, personal invitations in two days. Hmmmm.

The next few events were planned. Friday, my small group met for dinner, worship, prayer, study - all woven together beautifully by the Holy Spirit to refresh and renew us all. Saturday night I attended an open house for a couple I support in Singapore. Sunday, a commissioning service for some friends doing church planting locally.

That's five parties in five days. Amazing. Too much, really. I'm not THAT much of an extrovert! But it sure helped me feel as if Someone is looking out for me.

Anybody remember this old song?

Brother, let me be your servant.
Let me be as Christ to you.
Pray that I might have the grace
To let you be my servant, too.

We are pilgrims on a journey.
We are brothers on the road.
We are here to help each other
Walk the mile and bear the load.

I will hold the Christ-light for you
In the night time of your fear.
I will hold my hand out to you;
Speak the peace you long to hear.

I will weep when you are weeping.
When you laugh, I'll laugh with you.
I will share your joy and sorrow
Till we've seen this journey through.

Do You Suffer Status Envy?

Do you log into Facebook (or its ilk) and wish that it were YOUR best day ever, your wonderful vacation, your achievement or good fortune being proclaimed to the world in a sentence or two?

Situations in which I might easily enjoy with my friend - were we talking face to face or even in a more lengthy internet medium, such as a blog – may seem, when summed up in just a few words, to hit that “jealousy” button much more easily.

From the comments people leave each other and the complaints they also post, I sense I am not alone.

Of course the same evidence suggests I've been on the other side of it, stirring the envy of others with my adventures and discoveries. Or even just the news that I’m spending a quiet evening with a cup of a tea and a good book, an existence only dreamed of by my busy, child-rearing friends.

What do you think? Are these tensions inevitable given the tendencies of the human mind and heart? Or is there something that can be done to reduce status envy?

I came across a word that places the blame on the one who posts the update:

Facebrag: To use Facebook as a platform to brag. Normally about a job, internship, trip, purchase or anything else that nobody really needs to know but you'd like to tell everyone because you're awesome. (Urban Dictionary)

On the other hand, the heart of the writer may be quite pure, don't you think? They only want to proclaim the situation which is causing them happiness. They may not be bragging at all. And still it sparks status envy.

Maybe the only real solutions lie within the receiver. Where are our hearts? Where are we finding joy, purpose, and acceptance? Do we see our friends as competitors, or companions? If we're healthy and mature, maybe this wouldn't be a problem, at least not very often.

Perhaps we could reduce status envy by not logging on when we're feeling sorry for ourselves, are particularly vulnerable, etc. Hmmmm... but since social networking seems so mindless and addictive, perhaps that’s just when we’re most likely to do it.

What do you think?

On Loneliness and Hospitality, from Henri Nouwen

“It is important to stress that every human being is called upon to be a healer… We are all healers who can reach out to offer health, and we are all patients in constant need of help.” Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out (1975). p. 93.

Nouwen passed away a few years ago. He was a Catholic priest and teacher and the author of many books about the spiritual life. I picked up this one as much because it happened to be on the shelf at my local library as any other reason. But have found it quite helpful.

An underlying theme in Nouwen’s book is that the more we understand (and not simply deny) our inner struggles, the more fully we will be able to embrace a prayerful and genuine life that is also open to others’ needs.

We all have so much in common, don’t we? But a lot of that common ground is territory we would prefer to deny or run away from – things like pain, and fear, and failure. It reminds me of some lines from a Madeleine L’Engle poem:

Because you’re not who I would have you be / I blind myself who in truth you are / seeking mirage, where desert blooms. / Because I’m not who I would have me be, I idolize two ones who never touch. / Reality would burn. I do not like it much.

In this book Nouwen explores what it means to grow from the state of a stifling loneliness into a content solitude, from a hostility toward others to a receptive hospitality for others, and from preferring a world of illusion to turning to God in honest prayer.

From Loneliness to Solitude

Nouwen writes about having to nearly tie himself to a chair to face a blank sheet of paper, longing for any distraction which would keep him from having to face his own loneliness or explore his own thoughts.

He describes riding in the subway, where nobody speaks to one another or feels quite safe, but sits staring at the subway ads that feature happy people enjoying and encouraging one another – what a contrast.

He talks about going to parties where everyone is friendly but nobody is real, where everyone is welcome but nobody is missed if they do not come.

All are symptoms of the clash between our longings and our fears, a “society growingly populated with lonely people desperately trying to love each other without succeeding” (p. 28), the loneliness of “a world in which a competitive individualism tries to reconcile itself with a culture that speaks about togetherness, unity, and community as the ideals to strive for.” (p. 25)

It’s not surprising then that we try to use other people to fill our loneliness or cover it up, so reluctant are we to be alone with ourselves. He quotes Thoreau, who says (in terms easily translatable to the technologies of our own time):

“In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters proud of his extensive correspondence has not heard from himself this long while.” (p. 29)

From Hostility to Hospitality

Maybe it is ironic that when most suffocated by loneliness, we can respond to each other with greater hostility than hospitality. Nouwen suggests that it’s because at its root, what true hospitality is about is accepting and even developing our own sense of poverty, putting aside our needs and agendas and desire to speak, or give, or control, or do something. The teacher, the host, the minister should be willing not to “lead,” to speak, to control, or to offer a solution, but to humble themselves to create a friendly space for the other person.

Hospitality at its most effective is not about sharing your abundance with others. It's about welcome, about receptivity. We who long for someone to talk to, someone who will understand, find that the greatest gift we can give to another person is to really listen.

I think all that might be easier if we could be given some kind of promise that we were going to be treated with hospitality by others – that we were going to be welcomed and received and heard and understood, not just the one who gives those things to others.

Perhaps that’s why this section is sandwiched between the one about finding peace in one’s inner self and one on connecting authentically with God. Because with human relationships, there are lots of happy surprises, but no promises.

Serving One Another

If we really saw our service to one another in terms of hospitality, the way Nouwen defines it, we would prepare people for ministry differently. We would be less concerned about growing in experience and competence, in picking up the tools, techniques, and skills that make us “rich” and able to give out of that abundance.

“Real training for service asks for a hard and often painful process of self-emptying. … Training for service is not a training to become rich but to become voluntarily poor; not to fulfill ourselves but to empty ourselves, not to conquer God but to surrender to his saving power. All this is very hard to accept in our contemporary world… but it is important that in this world there remain a few voices crying out that if there is anything to boast of, we should boast of our weakness.” (p. 108)

Signs of Spring, Fears about Summer

Spring. In the Denver suburbs, I recognize it by:

1. The first dandelion blooming in my weed-punctuated lawn - yesterday.
2. The first garage sale in the neighborhood - last weekend.
3. Weather that even by Denver standards is fluctuating wildly.

Friday I got caught in a sudden squall, emotionally. I was thinking about summer. Far too often summers are for me a time of desolation. Especially in the spring I tend to spend so much of my energy investing in projects (as if I'm too busy for relationships) that if or when a summer lull hits - church activities canceled, the people I know best off on vacation with their families or out having fun with their friends - I find myself suddenly, desperately lonely, and deeply frustrated with the patterns of a lifetime that put me in such a position, that cause me to choose it.

I had a good cry about it. A rare, but helpful response to my fears, failures, and frustrations.

If I'm honest: yeah, I am great at forming new friendships, lazy or cowardly about cultivating deep, life-giving relationships. But it's not that I can't, or that I don't know how. And having a close, deep, life-giving relationship with the Lord is not only a huge consolation, but a huge help. I am not so brittle or deformed as I might be; I do have, by his mercy, a warm, pliable heart. I'm not incapable of reaching out for help, or offering true and meaningful friendship to those around me. I'm just lazy, busy, distracted. More in the habit of neglect (of both self, and others) than of intentional, effective loving-kindness.

Well, repentance is an option. Forgiveness, healing, restoration, and power are available for the asking.

I laughed, looking through my email inbox(es) some hours later, to realize that while I was freaking out over the prospect of a lonely summer, more than a half dozen people are waiting to hear back from me, people who said, "Hey, let's get together!" And there are others who would be delighted to spend more time with me. Perhaps I'll make a list, set a goal, make a plan. That pit of loneliness? It's not inevitable.

Refrigerator Meditations

A sweet dog who got too shaky on her feet in the last months, a soft-hearted roommate who is a bit of a slovenly housekeeper, and a 25-year-old carpet - well, combine them and you get what might be expected.

The dog is no longer with us but the badly stained carpet is. Mark & Amy, who own our place, plan to come replace it this summer.

When the stains get to the point I cannot stand them I rent or borrow a steam cleaner and see if I can reduce them to more muted levels.

This weekend was one of those times.

While I was waiting for the carpet to dry I sat, resting, in my favorite chair, which was temporarily relocated to the kitchen and sat facing the fridge. It's a very comfortable chair.

This arrangement gave me with a chair-level view of the 45 pictures of friends that hang in that place of honor. There's not enough room for everyone there; some of my pictures are at the office.

Thinking of these folks, remembering good times, and praying for them, I thought, why don't I do this more often? Do you think Deb would mind if I left my chair there? (Significantly easier than moving the fridge into the living room!)

Reunion

Friday night was another one of those gatherings that come regularly but are generally unexpected – sweet times of fellowship with fellow Calebite co-workers from years gone by. I’m glad that my life includes lots of interaction with people from a variety of worldviews but there is something very satisfying about being with those who are called according to the same purpose. The Caleb Declaration was a lifetime commitment I made and it’s still really what I live for, though I know it might play itself out in different ways in years to come. The camaraderie of people who share that commitment is particularly sweet to me.

To a few of my readers, this may sound like a cult! But be honest, isn't that kind of community and purpose something you've always wanted? Few people experience this, I think. I wish more people could.

It’s not just people who were part of our old ministry that share that calling; there are lots others. Most of those who attending the conference I went to over New Year’s are among them. I hadn’t expected that, to have so much in common with everyone who was there. You get used to swimming upstream, to having people think you’re a little weird, and you sort of expect to be misunderstood. So it’s nice when you’re with people who get what you’re all about because that’s what they’re all about too, and you can help and cheer each other on.

Anyway, when a couple of our long-time coworkers – or research team alumni – are in town, I’ll get a call or email (or, just as often, make the call, or send the email) and it’s a party. Some of them have been goodbye parties, some welcome home parties, but most are just reunions. There’s always someone there who lives in another state or country now, someone I might not see again for a couple of years, and usually don't know how or when.

Stories from across the decades – and across the continents – are retold, and there is always someone there hearing them for the first time. Over the last couple of years some of these reunions have been painful or a real mix of pain and pleasure. The things we went through two winters ago, the events that scattered us, were just so traumatic. (I love what the African guy I met in Thailand a year ago, said. He had seen his ministry fall apart, too, and he told my friend E. and I, with tears: “God will not waste your pain!” Amen! I receive it, brother!) While many of us landed on our feet one way or the other, there have still been waves of shock and grief. So this, too, is the stuff of our stories, part of our common past. But not all of it.

Most of the stories are about the hundreds of people we knew in common, and what we’ve heard from them lately. We remember the projects we did, the trips we made together. One of the families that was there on Friday night went through the same "new staff orientation" as I did, back in 1994. I think I’ve spent time with them in four or five countries. The family that hosted Friday’s gathering also helped host our new staff orientation, back then. So we've been friends almost 15 years.

I don't really feel as bittersweet about these things as it might seem, because such reunions seem to happen all the time. I may not see a particular old friend for years, but I'm in touch with old friends every week.

As another member of the group Friday night pointed out, this way of life we have has given us so many privileges. I suppose people think that full-time Christian workers are suffering; we make a lot less money than our neighbors do, for example (at least when we live in the West – when we spend time in other parts of the world, as most of us do, we’re much more aware of our wealth). We “have to” raise support. People think this is some kind of sacrifice, but there’s another way to look at it.

We are blessed in ways that few others are. Not only do we have meaningful work that we love – a rare thing – serving full-time in kingdom-of-God work, but it is work that really fosters relationships. I have friends all over the world; I have friends who pray for me every day (this astounds me); I have friends who believe in me enough to find a way to stay on my financial support team for more than a decade. One family has given $75,000 to help with my ministry expenses over the past dozen years. Is that amazing, or what?

So, even though I sometimes feel like I’m on my own, vulnerable – single – I have this family-like network of people much bigger than just my network of relatives, current coworkers, and people at my church. (Although I’m blessed in those three areas too) Most of the people in my church have their family, and the church family, and that's it, probably. But it's like I've got this whole third thing that's way bigger. And while I know (if only from my own behavior towards others) that not everyone is going to notice or pay attention if I'm discouraged or in need or in trouble, someone will. God does seem to orchestrate things so that people like me are never working “without a net.” How cool is that?

Surrogate Nieces and Nephews

In a recent post I mentioned not remembering the last time I held a baby. With my 40th birthday now in sight (if still two years off!) I find that fewer and fewer of my friends have little ones. I also expressed a wish that even if I never have kids (or step-kids/step-grandkids) of my own, I could get in on “aunt-hood” one way or the other. Oh, I’ve been Auntie Marti several times over the years, mostly to the kids of coworkers – God gave me a great ministry of prayer for them. And wasn’t I a regular at Fritz family gatherings? (Their youngest, just graduated from high school; he was five when I met him!) Some of my other readers are parents of kids whom I greatly dig, also!

But they and most of the others who have been my young friends have not only moved far away but are also well supplied with real aunts or uncles (and/or more convincing substitutes). So while I still love the old C.P. kids and always will, it’s been hard to feel like it was worthwhile to keep ongoing relationships with them a high priority.

Since I wrote about this, several things have happened.

1. I visited a Perspectives class that included a mother with a newborn. “Let me take her for you,” I said, smoothly, during the dinner break. Nice. I’m also working in the nursery at church for the second service this Christmas Eve. (Tonight! 7 pm!) So, maybe actual baby-time is not so hard to come by. What I’d really like would be to find someone who needs a free, more-or-less-once-a-week babysitter, during a time when I’m free (e.g. Monday or Thursday evening?). Why don’t I just ask the people who run that church nursery? Surely they would know a young mom in our church who could use that kind of help.

2. I realized that I ought to start praying and asking God about surrogate nieces or nephews. I’ve always looked for them among the children of coworkers, but I have a lot fewer coworkers now, and just like those of years gone by, these are well “aunted” and “uncled.” Where might I find a family that’s not only gracious enough to let me in but actually needs something that I could provide?

I don’t know that I can actually keep a demanding commitment on this front; don’t look to me to take a job in an orphanage, start fostering, or mentor a needy child. I don’t anticipate any of those things. I’m not great with kids, or gifted at aunt-hood. I just don’t want to miss out on it all together.

As I was praying, I realized God may have already given me a niece and nephew, only I’ve not seen it and have been neglecting them. Erin, in Seattle, is my oldest friend; we met in eighth grade. These days she finds herself the (often frazzled and isolated) single mom of two grade-school aged children. We’ve walked with each other through the challenges we have each faced with school, work, faith, family, and relationships. I was in Erin’s wedding, and watched her go through a divorce.

I haven’t been good about phone calls and letters but have spent time with Erin, and her kids and parents, most every time I’ve been in Seattle, even Christmas dinner. We have “someday” plans to make a trip to Disneyland together – maybe this year? Erin’s kids are great. They do have aunts and uncles, and great support from their grandparents. But there is room for me in their lives, and much more I could do for them as well. Even long-distance.

Not Again...

Some things just keep coming back around. This week I've been running into this again. It's just so darn frustrating.

I am also feeling sorry for myself that so little of my regular interaction is with people who really get me, "my kind" of people. Soul mates, life-long friends. I have quite a few, but they aren't part of my daily life, so - with so many of the other kinds of relationships requiring so much energy - I don't reach out much to the people with whom I feel a true connection. Small touches like through blogging and social networking help a lot; so would the phone, if I could manage to pick it up! The people I'm physically around, though, day in and day out, at work, church, home? They are not "best friend" material, for me, at least I don't think so. But they are decent comrades. I don't have much to complain about.

A few of them, while still not "like me," are ones with whom I've been through enough that it's almost as good. Those relationships are sort of like my friendship with E., whom I met in junior high; we're not much alike, but have been friends so long she's more like a sister or cousin. We've spent so much time together that the differences are never dissonant. We have a deep sense of sympathy for one another. I think we're going to take a vacation together next year.

So I have a couple of those kind of relationships in my daily life: people I really care about and love enough to be their advocate and champion, enjoy spending time together, etc. even though we don't really "get" each other that much. We love each other; we're willing to work at it, and not just because we "have to," we really like and care about each other. Even if I long for friends with whom I have deep, natural chemistry, I'm blessed with some friendships that are nearly as fruitful. "A lot of times I don't 'get' you, but I love you!" they say to me, I say to them.

I did have an enemy, I'll confess - and the situation was serious enough that there seemed no fixing it; it was probably my largest cause of stress this last year or so. Maybe the fact that he was suddenly and mercifully removed from my life is part of my current level of disappointment, strangely - things are so much better now that I notice the other disappointments, more?

I guess being understood, truly, and appreciated as well, is a rare thing for everyone - working at it, and navigating the hurt feelings, frustrations, disappointments, etc. is much more the norm - so why do I feel so let down?

On a lighter note, SM (a coworker) and I were chatting one day about the scan/fax/copy machine, with which he was having some trouble. "Why can't it read my mind?" he said. It took only a moment for both of us to realize that it was one office machine we wouldn't want to be able to do that. (Just imagine the fax machine sending out your actual thoughts to everyone you know! At least on a blog there's some editing!)

As Buechner says in Telling Secrets, being "known" is simultaneously the object of our greatest longing and our greatest fear.

But think of this, what a blessing it is to have a relationship with someone who actually CAN read our minds - and still embrace us warmly - and still protect us - and pull us out of our slumps - and able to walk alongside and help untangle any mess! His perspective is completely trustworthy (he's never wrong), his approach, his tone, exactly what they ought to be. Where could I find all that in any other friend?

So, we'll wrap up this little counseling session on loneliness with a trip back to the Psalms...

Psalm 147

1 Praise the LORD.
How good it is to sing praises to our God,
how pleasant and fitting to praise him!

2 The LORD builds up Jerusalem;
he gathers the exiles of Israel.

3 He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.

4 He determines the number of the stars
and calls them each by name.

5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
his understanding has no limit.

Personality

Fiona, a fellow blogger who lives in Paraguay, wrote quite a good post about what life is like for people who are introverted - particularly in missionary situations. I am an extrovert (albeit mildly so) and needed the reminder that people who do not behave as I would, or as others might tend to expect them to, may be "not wrong, just different." Thanks, Fiona!

It's funny, isn't it, how cross-cultural differences go clear down to the individual level? I mean, in a sense every relationship we have with another human being is cross-cultural. This makes the possibility of experiencing broken or strained relationships quite a bit higher than it might be otherwise.

I went through a season close to ten years ago when I started finding patches of common ground with everyone - I could identify with just about everyone I met. That perspective has lessened some over the years, but I think it's something I want to hold onto and cultivate.

Lately, though, I've been more aware of (and intimidated by) the differences. And in particular, I've found myself fretting that because others are different from me, I had better be careful or I'm going to squash or offend them by saying or doing the wrong thing. (The awkward-teenager-within-me often seems ascendant, rather than the-grown-woman-I-am!)

There's a keen line, sometimes, between keeping "be a good friend" high on one's person priority list, and being a perfectionist about it. If I think I can make someone happy or keep them from being sad, I'm taking too much onto myself.

Well, in a friendship (like in a marriage?) the secret may not be to avoid troubles or conflicts but to learn how to work through them or diffuse them.

* * *

By the way, work is going great, have I said that?

I've always loved my job, the work itself, but in the wake of The Late Unpleasantness the office has often been a less-than-encouraging environment.

Now, however, several factors that had really hurt our relationships and corporate culture have made a complete turnaround. I will be out of the office quite a bit in the next week or so, and am rather sorry to be gone.