We were on our way home from Nashville. We had just found out our song Something to Hope For was being used in the new American Idol preseason campaign. We pulled over into a McDonalds somewhere near Bowling Green, Kentucky. This was 2010, so none of us had smartphones, and Wifi at restaurants was a relatively new thing. It took about 20 minutes to download, but Jim, Kyle, Brennan and I sat in a booth in the back of the restaurant and watched the commercial that would be played for millions.

One of the things the internet was supposed to do was bring everyone together in sort of a one world scenario, but ironically, the opposite has occurred.  It was so interesting at first to have all of the people over the last 40 years of my life (35 when Facebook really got kicking) together in one place talking about times back in Northwest Ohio in the 80’s, or Pensacola, Florida in the middle 90’s, or from my 20 years here in New England.  Over time, however, we took sides, and our bias created our new world tribes.  This is what people are saying when they say the world is so divisive right now. 

One of the struggles of living in the Christian world is the inability of many Christians to be flexible about their beliefs.  This is due, in no small part, to the enlightenment, coupled with “modernity” and its belief or philosophy that we can know everything as humans.  So science can tell us everything we need to know about the world or the Bible tells us everything we need to know about God. This was of course the response of mankind to the middle or the “dark” ages where only a few special people, whether they were kings or priests, held the keys to knowledge or spirituality.

This morning at a wake someone looked at me and said, “I have no idea what to say, I just stood there and cried and hugged.”  Across the room someone listening in to the conversation replied, “Perfect!  They need your presence right now more than your words.”  I don’t know why Solomon wrote this, but in Ecclesiastes, the king ponders, “A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth.”  It is a stunning declaration that there is something “better” about what happens beyond death than what has happened in life.  This could point to the afterlife but it also could communicate how important the memory and the connection of the loved ones community is the world after that person dies.  When someone you know dies, who can you connect with in their family or friend group that could benefit from your presence.  We live in such an individualistic, my life first, and death opens us up to our mortality, and that we are better together.

The times in our lives where we felt closest to being the New Testament Church were when we had a small group of people at our home. We broke bread, we prayed, we worshipped, we read God’s word together… we reached out and blessed others… we met each other’s needs. We were a church.

We walked into Tom’s office. It was beautiful. It was large and had artwork and memorabilia from Warner artists. There was a black baby grand piano. Tom was confident, and slightly intimidating. Maybe he wasn’t, I was just intimidated by the weight of the meeting. You see, when you hear the term “big wigs”, this guy is who that is referring to. Except, this was the biggest of all the big wigs. The guy with the most power. The guy with all the superstar’s numbers in his phone. The guy who just sold his house for 18 million and is managing Tupac’s estate. This guy could put us in the best position possible to be a huge success, or failure.

Another method of eliciting affirmation is much less subtle. It’s usually posted as a question which would cull positive responses back to the poster. “If I was drowning, would you save me?” Of course people would, and would say so (those that would not likely aren’t Facebook “friends” anyway), but as these types of posts continue, only those who need to be an affirmer, a rescuer, end up replying. The posters are crying for positive feedback, needing to hear they are worthy, but over time elicit less of it. It’s a Peter and the Wolf syndrome.

We all do this to some extent, soliciting compliments in order to bolster our self-image. I write stories or essays or reviews and point people to them, hoping they enjoy it. I might not overtly be asking for someone to tell me they liked it, but isn’t that what we want, to hear we’re doing something worthwhile?