Most everyone who lives within winter's grasp will agree. This has been a long, cold winter. For those who live where snow lies on the ground for more than four months, it's been a lonely winter. In the upper Midwest and north of the 48th parallel, neighbors aren't seen for weeks at a time. Few want to venture out into the -30 or lower temperatures unless it is absolutely necessary.
Winter for many often means feeling alone and isolated. Do you feel abandoned? Perhaps if not now, there may have been times in your life when you've felt forgotten, unloved, and yes, even abandoned.
In our 21st Century "technologically connected" world, it seems we're becoming farther and farther apart. Facebook calls the people who've signed up to see our page 'friends' but are they? We talk about being 'connected to our friends,' but are we really?
Award-winning Spokane/Coeur d'Alene author and poet Sherman Alexie was interviewed by Bill Moyers on his Moyers & Company TV show and they discussed several topics, one of which was the Internet and Facebook. Alexie calls Facebook "the endless high school reunion." He says Facebook friends worship on the "altar of loneliness."
According to Alexie, the Internet is only one level of communication. "It's insulting," he told Moyers. "It limits us to one dimension and that's not who we are."
He went on to explain that when he plays basketball with his friends, their sweaty bodies contact one another. "That's connection," he says. "When people say they're connecting with someone on Facebook, I don't know that they've ever really connected with anyone."
Alexie goes on to proclaim that he doesn't have Facebook friends. "I have friends."
Ever ride the bus or subway and sit surrounded by silent people who don't talk to one another? Suddenly, a cell phone rings and that person starts a conversation with their unseen friend as if theirs is the only conversation in the room (or vehicle). And that's true.
Our cellphones, smart phones, and iPads have changed how we interact with one another. It's easy for someone to talk to a person who's not there with them, but very difficult to talk to those sitting next to them in the flesh.
Have we forgotten how to talk to one another unless it's on some kind of gadget?
Unfortunately, this lack of connection with people around us is hurting the church. In surveys on why people are leaving churches, one of the main reasons given is that people can't connect and feel a part of the church community.
Fellowship is a word that's not used much anymore. Our places of worship have become halls filled with audiences instead of the Family of God coming together to worship and fellowship-enjoying one another's company. This is a key ingredient that's missing in many worship communities.
It's important to know that while connection with fellow human beings is important, what's crucial is our connection to our Creator, the One who made us and knows everything about us.
A.W. Tozer, one of the prophetic voices of the last century, wrote this about our relationship with fellow humans. "Every man looks to his fellowmen because he has no one else to whom he can look. David could say, "Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee" (Psalm 73:25). But the sons of this world have not God; they have only each other, and they walk holding to each other and looking to one another for assurance like frightened children. But their hope will fail them..."
Tozer goes on to say that much of our longing for community can be controlled by our desire to please others. He writes: "With this desire to please men so deeply implanted within us how can we uproot it and shift our life-drive from pleasing men to pleasing God? Well, no one can neither do it alone, nor can he do it with the help of others, nor by education nor by training by any other method known under the sun. What is required is a reversal of nature (that it is a fallen nature does not make it any the less powerful) and this reversal must be a supernatural act."
Tozer goes on to explain that it is an act the Holy Spirit performs when we hear the Good News and believe it with living faith. It is then that the old is replaced with the new. "He invades the life as sunlight invades a landscape and drives out the old motives as light drives away darkness from the sky."
In our world where people are becoming more distant and isolated through Facebook and Twitter, perhaps this will help us refocus on our true Source.
1. A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, The Pursuit of Man, Christian Publications 2002.
