Closing the Distance (Part 2 in the Normal Is Moving series)

NEW! Now you can LISTEN to the author reading this essay HERE: The Scrawling Shepherd reads this essay



A few days ago I wrote an article I called Normal Is Moving. If you missed it, you can find it HERE.

In that article I mentioned some ideas I have about how I want to describe, define, and develop its new location for me. Today I'm writing about the first of those ideas.

I also mentioned recently that my mind has been working hard while the rest of me is resting. Many mornings I've woken with a spaghetti pile of thoughts tumbling around like sneakers in a clothes dryer. This morning, the thread of one of those ideas was sticking out a little more prominently, where I could get hold of it and coax it loose.

We're in Week #3 (depending on when you start counting) of what we've been calling "social distancing." It's a new expression, socially engineered to be less alarming and confrontational than the old words: isolation and quarantine. But that's okay, I'm not objecting to the semantics. Words are important. That's not my point.

My thought was this: since I'm overcoming the isolation of social distancing using digital technology readily available to most of us at very little expense (besides the expense of internet access we were already paying anyway!), that means of connection has actually SHORTENED or CLOSED the distance between people who are separated by hundreds of miles of actual, real world distance.

Kelly (my wife in case you don't know me personally) and I have some very dear friends who live in Northern Maine. During the three years we lived there, we made many friendships that were and are dear to us. Since our return visits to that region are very few and very far between, it has been difficult to maintain those relationships.

Here's where I need to confess a character flaw or shortcoming that I have long known was true of me: I'm really lousy at maintaining relationships over time and distance. It's partly due to my introverted nature, but I was reminded by my pastor on Sunday that "It's just the way I am" is not an acceptable excuse for not doing the things that I should do, or becoming the person God wants me to be, and others close to me want me to become.

So, it's been my "custom" to allow the relationships I've made during a certain season in my life to wither due to neglect after I've moved on geographically, or professionally, or both. That's "my bad." (Another way of acknowledging that it's my fault without actually doing anything to change it.)

I started noticing more than a decade ago that now that we have these new platforms that eventually became known collectively as "social media," I could find and reconnect with some of those people. It started with "MySpace." Remember that one? It showed up a little earlier than Facebook, but like Compuserve, was quickly swallowed up by Facebook, and Twitter, and then Instagram, Snapchat, and whatever else is already in use.

I found and reconnected with some high school classmates, and one connection in particular gave me an opportunity to try to apologize for the poor treatment and neglect I had shown to one of those classmates. Some of you who know me well and/or have heard me talk for long enough might remember that story. I won't retell it here.

Soon, I moved over to Facebook, the social media megaladon, where I've found and reconnected with many, many other people I've known over the years: high school, college, military service, seminary (1st), seminary (2nd), and the churches and schools where I've served, as well as the secular jobs I've held over the years. All of these relationships I rediscovered were important to me AT THE TIME, but every one of them had been left to wither, starved of attention.

But all of that is changing, starting NOW. My thought this morning was that social distancing, while impacting by current relationships and style of work, has closed the distance that existed between those former and neglected relationships.

Friday night our "Home Group", the small group Kelly and I are a part of at our church, met via Zoom conferencing. (Side note: man, I wish I had the money and intelligence to buy some shares of Zoom a month ago!) We sat "together", each in our own place of isolation and distancing, but connected virtually by digital communication tools. A camera, a microphone, sound speakers, a computer to drive them and an internet connection (wireless!) facilitated our meeting. It wasn't "the same" as being in the same room. (Mostly because we couldn't share a potluck meal together!) Okay, there are other things true of meeting over distance that fall short of being in person, but since that isn't possible, this seems like the "next best thing." Some of the people in our group actually live quite close to us, geographically. We could walk to their house if we wanted to, but right now that's out of the question.

Back to my thought from this morning. If I can continue to teach my students while at home staring at a computer screen and speaking into a microphone, and if I can attend a board meeting, or a staff meeting, or an elders meeting, by Zoom, and have a satisfactory experience of seeing and hearing what others are saying, why not use the same means of connection with my friends who live hundreds of miles away?

The social distance between us is a current and temporary necessity. But in some way, the distance between those of us who are nearby and those of us who are far away is, right now, exactly the same distance.

Normal is moving. But I see a chance to go forward from where it used to be to a new, and in many ways better, situation. Get ready, friends far and wide! I may be sending you an invitation to a Zoom meeting soon!

God's blessing and peace be upon you.

Dennis