Friday Freelance: FACES

Since our family switched to hi-speed internet, I've begun regularly using Facebook. A couple or three times a day I check in to see the faces of people I know and love.

I like the ability to stay in close touch with people I dearly love but otherwise see and hear from infrequently. I like re-connecting to friends from the past and watching their lives from the sidelines. I love all the random praises cast out to God in a public forum.

But there's something disquieting in the pseudo dialogue that may satisfy a need for fellowship without ever connecting. More disturbing is the idea that Facebook—along with e-mail, internet chats, Twitter, the blogsphere, texting, and cell phones—provides the primary social connection for so many people to the exclusion of the real faces in our lives. These days, I begin to respond to a person who speaks, then realize their conversation is with a bluetooth.

I want to connect with as many real faces as possible. Each person who happens across my path—even strangers who face me as we pass through a doorway—is a human being I can connect with. I'll make eye contact and smile. My hidden agenda is to elicit a return smile.

I often slip in a friendly "Hi!" (and even a hostile face may soften). Many faces will remain next to mine long enough for light conversation. Some faces respond with a smile after a single cheerful remark. Some faces take a little more banter before offering a smile. Some faces need an work over of gentle empathy and subtle suggestion that today holds something good in it. Some faces carry the light of the Lord, and we easily share a praise. If at all possible, I'm determined to obtain a smile from every face.

Some faces carry a weight too heavy to offer any hint of a smile. Gentle empathy invites more serious conversation. Whether friend or stranger, I occasionally feel led by God's Spirit to ask, "Is there anything I can pray about for you?" The burdens are never light for the one who carries them. I am often stunned by what even a stranger is desperate to share. "My brother committed suicide." "My finances are a problem." "I'm very confused by life right now." "My father just died." When possible, I pray on the spot. A select few strangers are still on my prayer list from years ago, though I'll never know this side of heaven what's become of them.

I carry no illusions that I am God, prepared to solve the problems of the world. I am not exhorting personalities less outgoing than this uber-extrovert to do likewise.

I do suggest that we who are in Christ have a light to shine in a very dark world. God gives opportunities, and His Spirit enables us. If our eyes are open and hearts are willing, His light will reach others.

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