Ramblings about friendship inspired by late-night surfing . . .

For the last couple of weeks my allergies have been a daily annoyance, sometimes waking me up in the middle of the night and keeping me up for nearly an hour at a time until my allergy medication takes effect. One consequence of this is that I end up feeling completely drug out the next day. Mornings, typically my prime work time, find me wandering around zombie-like. Concentration is nearly non-existent. Last week especially felt like a complete loss. Though ironically it was on a night when I found myself awake at 3am that I finally realized what my Sunday sermon was supposed to be about. This was Friday night (technically Saturday morning). Once the idea was settled -- a message looking at 2 & 3 John -- the rest came quite quickly. It was what my mother-in-law would call a "God-thing." I agree with her.

On one of the many nights I found myself sniffing and sneezing unable to sleep I found myself on the computer surfing. In particular, I was looking up old friends, checking out their blogs, and seeing if I could find out what they were presently up to. I didn't have a whole lot of luck. But it got me thinking.

Since moving back to NB from Ontario and getting married and becoming a dad, my time has pretty much been divided between home and church, between family and ministry. My world has contracted. Most days, once my daughter is in bed all I usually want to do is relax, spend time with my wife, and precious little else. What this means is that I have largely lost touch with most friends. I rarely am in contact with anyone other than immediate family and church folk. My wife has long since given up exhorting me to call friends who live long distance. In my own defense, old friends have rarely shown initiative in keeping in touch with me. It can cut both ways. But this says something about how, once we're no longer in school and find ourselves married with children or busy with ministry or work, our priorities definitely change. How we use what time we have is usually predetermined by family and career. Other things often fall off the radar. It's not that we deliberately shut out old friends, but that anything which doesn't immediately relate to life right here and right now gets crowded out.

Being in my mid-30s also means that making new friends isn't easy. I'm not going anywhere most of the time where I am likely to meet new people who might become friends. I recall a Seinfeld joke that said that the friends you have once you're in your 30s are your friends -- you're not getting anymore! I don't think that's precisely true, but as a pastor in a small town it is hard to make friends. The members of your congregation can't usually be the sort of friends that you catch a movie with. I don't often think of this, but on those occasions when my wife and daughter are away for a day or two I do sometimes wish there was someone I could call and get together with, someone who shared my interests without also knowing me as a pastor.

I have a Facebook account. I never use it, and so I should just cancel it and close down my profile. Anyone I know who is on Facebook will browse my profile in vain for new information, updates, or recent pictures. I've never been motivated enough to maintain it. I once did close my profile but opened it again so I could find out if a friend's wife had their baby. But it does seem to me that Facebook has taken over from e-mail and other options as the preferred means of keeping in touch with friends, old and new. I almost feel guilty for not using it, as though somehow I've committed the sin of not-keeping-up-with-the-latest-in-communication-technology and as a result have demonstrated a complete lack of interest in keeping up with friends, especially old friends. I only know that the little experience I have with Facebook seems to bear out my feeling that it could easily become a major time drain. I guess I don't have any sound reasons for missing friends, not if I don't make the effort afforded by the technological options available.