The Sunday of the Three Ruminations

So, it's been awhile since either of us has written or posted. I think we'll both try to make Sunday a day of contemplation and blogging. There is certainly much to record this day, including Facebook, the experiences and feelings of waiting for our travel plans to gel, and reactions to recent political discussions and their relations to today's toxic political climate.

Facebook

About a week ago, National Public Radio (NPR) aired a story on Facebook. They talked about its origins and destiny, its assets and liabilities, its uses both planned and unexpected. Those on the program concluded their discussion with a unanimous recommendation to sign-up, get-involved, use it, but avoid being captured by it. So, four days ago, we made the plunge. We started out with a mistake, unfortunately. I created separate accounts for each of us. As the volume of responses and friends began to increase almost exponentially on both pages, and from essentially the same folks, we quickly concluded that one account was the best use of Facebook for us.

Our intent has come to be communication with our family, our friends and also our missionaries whom we knew and loved while serving in Russia from 2000 to 2003. The lion's share of our Facebook friends are missionaries, many of whom we have not heard from since 2000 when we first arrived in Moscow. It has been a wonderful experience so far to just connect, regain contact, read their profiles and see where they have been, where they are now and indeed where they plan to go.

This week's edition of Newsweek online had a somewhat humorous article about 7 myths of Facebook. The author sought to debunk the excuses Facebook users proffer for spending inordinate amounts of time on the website. We can see how one could be swallowed by this technology, even by the urges of prurient interests to probe and pry into others lives. Nonetheless, we've discovered a wonderful tool for reconnecting and befriending. In spite of the fact that we are becoming "ancients of days," we are grasping and effectively (sort of) using this amazing technology.

Awaiting Travel Plans

May of 2008, call comes from dear friend and LDS Church leader Douglas Callister about an open assignment and would we be interested. Of course we would. June, informal call is extended. We go to meetings, begin to prepare ourselves by learning French and accessing European Union websites to become familiar with that organization. We are concerned that a scheduled trip to China may need to be canceled. No worry, we are told. We leave all of our church callings in order to prepare. It's now late February. We still don't have a departure date. We don't have visas and nothing of plans or permission has raising its head above the distant horizon. Last December, we agreed with Church Travel on a departure date in February. That got moved to mid-March. They are so far not forthcoming about whether we will make that date. In the meantime, folks in our neighborhood and at church keep asking when we will be going. Others, whom we haven't seen for some time, explain upon sighting us, "Wow! You're back already." It is painful and frustrating to wait and wonder. But, in lieu (note the use of a French word here) of anything else to do, we will continue to painfully and frustratingly wait and wonder (and maybe ballroom dance a "few" times each week until we embark.)

The Toxicity of Political Dialogue

I recently had another political discussion with someone who holds views quiet antithetical to my own. Our interactions were not too dissimilar from the heated, toxic interactions seeming to pervade our airways and hallways of late. These interactions and blatherings fowling the frequencies are too painful, much too painful, to listen to. Some folks spend hours and hours each week being propagandized and driven to rage and hate by these discussions. I find people who have taken such toxic stances on either side simply no longer listen to one another. They lie in wait, like cobras ready to strike, and wait their chance to spew their beloved venom. Arguments are typically laced with many time-worn, outdated canards, etched in stone about the views and groups on the opposite side. Steven Covey's rule, seek first to understand before you seek to be understood, is honored only in the breach. There are many, many political talk show hosts, on distant, far distant, sides of the political aisle who broadcast these "principles" with toxic rancor and bombast. Their views have intoxicated many and I fear our nation may well be past the point of no return where working together to solve problems, as did Lincoln, is no longer a possibility. We are floundering. Heaven help us.