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As you can see, the number fell 25% and hasn't recovered. But while the pandemic exacerbated that trend, the reality is that we've been spending less and less time together for years. The more screens invade our lives, the less we socialize. (The irony that I am writing this and you are reading it on a screen is not lost on me.)
This is a problem -- and I say that as an introvert. God made people to be social creatures. We need one another. We are all stronger in community. Zoom is good, but it's not everything.
As we grow more and more isolated, our tempers are getting shorter. Society is growing angrier. That's turning our politics angrier, too.
In a related article, "How Covid Remade America," David Foster Wallace shares this perspective on why spending less time together during COVID matters: "Isolated, we saw one another first as threats and then as something less than real. Covid unfolded on screens for most Americans... Over the long sweep of liberal history, our circle of empathy had expanded steadily, until it encompassed nearly the whole globe; now it snapped back, as tight as a rubber band."
COVID was terrifying. We needed to try everything we could in those initial months. But times are different now, and it's time we get together again. Certainly, some at St. PJ's are fantastic about in-person connections. I especially see that on Wednesdays at the noonday prayer service. Yet all of us can always do more for ourselves, and others.
Do what you can to see friends and family more often. Reach out to someone for a coffee or a beer. Go for a walk, and smile rather than look away from the folks you pass. Invite someone over for dinner. Make a call instead of sending a text.
Invite someone to church - sell them on the music and the coffee hour!
Your vestry meets each month on Zoom, but has agreed in theory to move three of its meetings each year back to in-person.
Think about events the church might be able to host in the coming year, perhaps something you could help organize or at least volunteer for. Speaking of volunteering, consider volunteering for the Maundy Thursday dinner -- whether that's organizing the event, making a soup, or simply setting up and cleaning up.
This Labor Day, I will have had a beard for 20 years. In those 20 years, I have only used beard oil once, at my best friend's urging - but the moment it touched my skin, I remembered and suddenly understood Psalm 133. That fine oil on my beard was almost as amazing a feeling as the friendship that prompted it. Let's not forget that. Let's keep showing up for each other, more and more, as God intended.
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