Reflections on Community (2)

Focusing on community through the 40 days of community challenge has been a real blessing to me and a compliment to what I gave up for lent: facebook. It's funny really...the first few days without facebook were HORRIBLE. I felt disconnected from everyone, I felt left out of certain information (because no one remembers to tell you in person if they already put it on facebook!)...it was hard. But I decided to continue on.

I started calling people (most of my family and close friends don't live near me anymore so this is the communication I have right now) to see how things were going...and one conversation in particular stands out to me. I called my youngest brother Chris (I'm the oldest of 4 kids) who turned 18 not too long ago. We ended up talking for about an hour and a half. We talked about transitions, jobs, money, housing, music and relationships. I got to really open up about my hopes surrounding future employment and moving soon (oddly enough we are in the same boat with these two topics!)

By the end of our conversation, it felt so good to SHARE LIFE with him. To support each other and know that we would be there in the good and the bad. Before we hung up I said to him "Yeah I just called you to see what's going on now that I can't read it on facebook anymore" and he said "You know...all the things we talked about I haven't really shared with anyone, especially on facebook." I'm not missing anything on facebook, really. Sure I'm missing status' like "Out to dinner" or "Watching Tommy boy!" but I'd have to actually talk to people to share in the stories of their heart anyway. You know...I just might never go back to facebook...it might have sufficed before lent to just read my brothers mundane status' and never call him...but boy...

...There's nothing better than the love of a brother.

Circa 1992 My sister Thea, My brother Jon, and myself holding my brother Chris