I just watched a commercial for a home healthcare business...a lovely brunette helps an elderly woman move around her apartment, vacuums, cooks, and sits and visits with her. The tag line from the elderly woman is "It's just like having a friend." Really?
I talked with my husband this morning about a church survey that shows that self-described "committed" churchgoers today attend worship twice a month. Really?
Read an article in the NYTimes this morning on the popularity of "flock comedies"...a new genre of sitcom that the writer postulates is popular because of the extended time post-education and pre-children that is spent in "flocks" of friends. He then describes parents who spend the same amount of time with their children as previous generations, but work full time. What has to go is "friends." So we watch TV to replace the friendships we no longer have time for. Really?
Really. I can't help but think sometimes that it is time to reclaim our lives from this insane culture. If we can demand healthy food options and green options as a culture, why can't we also demand sanity options. Why do our elderly have to hire friends to care for them as they age? Why do our lives revolve around every activity on Sunday but the one we claim is most important in our lives, or why do we let the rest of the weekend get so full that we feel we can do nothing on Sunday but "rest." Why don't we have friends that actually can come to our homes? Why, why, why?
My heart is a bit achy today. I grieve youth who don't develop relationships with their peers at church because they are never there. I grieve churches who flounder on Sunday mornings because attendance is sporadic. I grieve community lost, disciplines not practiced, potential never reached. I grieve the promise of abundant life that God holds out for us that we ignore because we are so distracted by demands that deplete us.
Is this the way we want to live? Really?
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