Going Local

Twitter is useful for many things. I love the resource sharing, seeing the books or the podcasts people are enjoying. I follow several brilliant people who have great ideas which in turn give me plenty of good things to think about. Twitter also gives me a pulse on the outside world. What is going on? What are the questions people are asking? But despite all that, like other technology, social media tends to break forth from the bounds we set for it. Instead of quickly scanning some books or ideas, I am left reading the comments of a real political slugfest, liking and cheering on my team. Instead of going in and getting out with what I came for, I find myself scrolling and scrolling, while my flesh and blood offspring are in front of me requiring my undivided attention. 

In a COVID-19 world, Twitter offers the community and the human interaction we crave. There are people online who have the same interests and viewpoints as me! Imagine that! Who else do I know enjoys reading Napoleonic Naval Historical Fiction or would debate with me the merits of G. K. Chesterton's fictional works? Who else would share with me a Thomas Manton quote? Well, now that I think of it there are a few, but overall, there is just not sufficient local interest for that kind of niche content. 

But beneficial and fun as these Twitter interactions are, at the end of the day, those people are not my people. I do not know them as I know the family that has attended my church for a decade and a half. There are boundaries that keep us from getting close, and I wonder if that is part of the appeal of online communities. It is a sufficient medium to get to know people at a certain level and receive some of the perks of human interaction overlapping on common interests, but it does not let anyone get too close. 

Online friendships do not demand anything really challenging from us, they offer the ability to present only the best side of us--or a completely contrived side we simply want others to see. It is a convenient arrangement, but time and mental energy devoted to this arrangement is taken away from the ones most important to us. Online followers and friends will not speak at our funerals. They will not take notice of our hardships and give us a hug when those rains come. Online connections can be valuable, but for the stuff of real life, they cannot provide that contact we need most deeply.

Much of our online fascination is due to a “globetrotter impulse,” a yearning to escape from our small town and see the greater world. G. K. Chesterton writes about this in his essay against Rudyard Kipling in Heretics--Kipling being one who personified the man of the world:

The more dead and dry and dusty a thing is the more it travels about; dust is like this and the thistle-down and the High Commissioner in South Africa. Fertile things are somewhat heavier, like the heavy fruit trees on the pregnant mud of the Nile. In the heated idleness of youth we were all rather inclined to quarrel with the implication of that proverb which says that a rolling stone gathers no moss. We were inclined to ask, 'Who wants to gather moss, except silly old ladies?' But for all that we begin to perceive that the proverb is right. The rolling stone rolls echoing from rock to rock; but the rolling stone is dead. The moss is silent because the moss is alive.

Chesterton detests the person who is ever travelling and encountering new cultures and places, but never has the patience with any one place to settle down and build roots. This person has a discontentment with his home, it bores him and he goes out and makes the world small. But as Chesterton says elsewhere in the essay it is the peasant who has a larger world than the globetrotter.

This same impatience and lack of devotion to our place lurks behind much of the social media phenomenon. We want to see what is going on and connect with all the very interesting people out there, when all the while, the same old families and friends are under our very nose. People we have either lost interest in or annoyed us for time gone by, but here they remain!

Many have written about the the rootlessness of our modern world, how we seem to lack a real sense of place and belonging. We bounce around social media visiting hither and yon trying to satisfy that itch, but for all that tumbling there is no real substance or root to it. There is no moss or life. Like Chesterton's globetrotter we have no firsthand loyalties or patriotism, but sure we see some fun things. It is not a good trade. 

Furthermore, our impact is diminished as we find our efforts lacking growth. To bear fruit one must be planted, which requires both an entire network of roots and a considerable amount time to grow. I will grant it is possible to make a lasting difference on someone through social media, but it is far more likely to make a lasting difference on your son. One hundred likes on a tweet probably won't change a life, but showing up one hundred weeks at your local Mission might.

Instead of spreading ourselves thin across the cybersphere, what if we had the courage to go local? What if we owned the place we have been given? I would not live in a town, I would live in my town. For better or for worse, this church I attend would be my church. This would be my family and these would be my friends. What if I felt an obligation to the people in my community, for no other reason than God has placed them around me? If we devoted ourselves to the station we have been given and the people we find there, perhaps giving up some of all the exciting things out there, I suspect we may see more fruit to our endeavors. 

We might not go viral, we might not be up to date; but we may actually find ourselves making a difference.