YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND IN ME

    Healthy relationships are crucial to healthy lives. We need them. But they are hard to find, hard to begin, and hard to keep up with. Why do you think social networking websites are so popular? Because they are pseudo-relationships- close enough to the real thing to provide addicting instant gratification and far enough from the real thing to do real damage. I could post an entire blog about the similarities between what a facebook page can offer you compared to what a true friend could offer you. And it's not only facebook.

     In 2004, a movie came out called Shall We Dance starring Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez, and Susan Sarandon. I don't necessarily recommend it, but there was this one scene that stated a truth forever burned in my brain. In the movie Susan Sarandon plays a wife who thinks her husband is cheating on her and she hires a private detective to follow him to find out the truth. After a short amount of time, she starts to feel guilty so she meets with the detective to tell him to stop. During their meeting, the detective questions her about marriage. Why do people even bother to get married, knowing the risks and heartaches that come with it? Susan Sarandon gets this dazed look on her face and responds:

"We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will be your witness." 

Sounds a lot like what twitter offers, doesn't it? The promise of twitter is this: Your life (the good things, the bad things, the mundane things) will not go unnoticed because those faceless readers will be your witnesses.

     I am not against social networking. I don't have a facebook page or twitter account; however, I see there are good things that can come with them. I just think it's important to be aware of the potential damage. As teens, we joke about facebook addictions all the time. Why can't we get off the darn thing? Could it be we are seeking a witness to give meaning to our lives? Could it be we believe the lie that a faceless reader gives our every day relevance?

      If you are one of my faithful readers (mom again) who read all the way to this point, you may be wondering what the actual harm is… I mean, if a computer website can replace the relevance a live witness adds to your life, and it is so similar you haven’t distinguished the difference, why worry about it? I think I worry for two reasons. One, because God intended us to have relationships with each other and doing things the way God intended is always worth it. And two, Twitter won’t cry with you when all the proverbial crap hits the fan…but a real friend worthy of investing in will. Maintaining a relationship which requires face to face connection is far more work then simply typing away and hitting the “post” button. But my thought process is this…whenever you replace something real with an imitation, however similar the imitation may be, there is always a price to pay. And in the end, I don’t think the cost will be worth it.

     To close, here is a thought that is perhaps worthy of consideration. What if the hunger deep down for relevance, for a witness to make the mundane worthy of noticing, isn't the evil? What if that desire was the reason God says relationships (both with Him and with each other) are so important?

What do you think?