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.

My Confession . . .

Despite the name of this blog, not a lot of confessing actually takes place here. In fact, I use the term confessions more in the sense of Augustine's Confessions. Not that I'm comparing my meagre reflections to his profound autobiographical treatise! His is a masterpiece of Western religious thought and philosophy. Mine are, well, lucky to be read by a small number of family and friends. But now I'm getting off topic.

So I have a confession to make. I want to admit to something that I almost feel embarrassed about. It's my dark, dirty little secret. It's one of those personal quirks that I tend to hide in the shadows, away from prying, evaluative, judging eyes. So, please, when you hear it--or, rather, read it--don't think that I have conceded to the moral downslide of our culture and indeed have become a willing participant in it.

Here it is: I like TV.

There it is. There you have it. I haven't completely renounced as subversively evil that dreaded one-eyed monster, that contraption responsible for the bulk of our societal ills, the idiot box, the 20th century invention to end all 20th century inventions, the one that has perhaps shaped our world more than any other: the television.

Why is this a confession, you ask? It's a confession because as a pastor I often hear about people condemning outright anything and everything that is broadcast on television. I hear about the influence TV has on children, young people, and families. I hear church members decry its depiction of moral decay and gratuitous displays of violence and sex. And all the while as I listen to such comments, I think to myself, "You know, there are actually some TV shows I like. And some of them you just might not approve of." So it's a confession insofar as it's something that I don't really say to many people, especially those who know me in my capacity as pastor. Isn't the pastor supposed to be the sort of person who rises above that banal need for mindless and passive entertainment? Apparently not, because I don't.

The odd thing about this, of course, is that while my family and I have a television (a modest widescreen model), we don't actually have television channels. I'm not interested in having either cable TV or a satellite dish, and probably couldn't afford either one of those anyway even if I were. So, you're wondering, without TV channels, how do I watch TV? (Well, if you've gotten this far, you still might not care that much about how I do get to watch TV. Take it as a rhetorical question!) In any case the answer is: TV DVDs.

For the last few years my wife and I have purchased TV DVD boxsets instead of paying for other cable options. We buy shows we want to see, spend less money because we don't have a monthly bill, and pay even less money because sometimes family and friends give them to us as gifts on appropriate holidays. There are pros and cons to doing it this way, but, for right now, the pros outweigh the cons. Still, it's amusing to watch people react when we tell them we have a TV but no TV channels. It's almost the equivalent of what I imagine the reaction would be like if I said to someone that while, yes, the telephone does seem to be a wonderfully useful and convenient piece of technology, we as a family are still rather attached to our carrier pigeon and don't plan, therefore, on upgrading anytime soon.

So isn't this really a silly confession? Well, maybe. It's been awhile since I've posted here and I wanted something to write about! And I find that, strangely, I feel somewhat guilty about enjoying TV. Or I should say some TV. I'm sort of picky in what I choose to watch, especially since I'm (usually) paying for particular TV boxsets (The X-Files, Seinfeld, 24, Fawlty Towers, and a few more). Now as far as whether there's anything redeeming (artistically or spiritually) about anything I watch, that's a topic for another post. It was hard enough owning up to the fact that I actually enjoy watching some TV! For now, time to exit the confessional.