web

Facebook is a fascinating phenomenon. Over the course of my 18 month tenure on the site I have amassed 77 friends from almost every era of my life. Most of these 'friends' are individuals with whom I once had a regular relationship of some kind, people I would speak to if I met them in the street. Some of them are just random folks I have met a few times, these are the people that have hundreds of 'friends'. I try to stick to the people I know, or at any rate have known fairly well at some point in my life.

There are the kids I grew up with in church, now scattered around the country (or around the world in my case). There are the folks I knew when I first went away to college, these relationships lasted rather longer after the fact, but have now become a general well-wishing more than solid friendships. There are a few people I worked with for a time, not really much relationship left there.

That brings me, more or less, up to now, but even in the now there are remarkably diverse groups of people who have chosen me as 'friend'. There are people in the States - friends in the midwest, fellow students and graduates of the Leland Center, members of my home church there and my family members. There are people in the UK - members of my church, students at the College, members of the choir and a few others I have met here and there.

Today, as I was reading the "status updates" of some of my friends on my "news feed" I was again reflecting on the huge diversity of opinion reflected by their postings. There are two friends I have in particular, from widely different spheres of my life, who regularly post links and write notes about political and cultural issues. If they ever encountered each other's postings, each would be upset, not to say incensed and offended, by the attitude and opinions of the other. I don't actually completely agree with either, but I can see the position of both (usually) and while the posts of each one offend me at times, they are still each my friend.

That got me to thinking, I wonder, if it were possible to make a map of all of my friends, their ideas, opinions, beliefs, thoughts, values, habits, etc. Would I land somewhere in the middle? Almost as if they were the web and I the center. In a way these people are a picture of the journey of my life, the places I have been and the thoughts and attitudes I have interacted with. To take the two friends mentioned above - I very much came out of a place where I would have agreed with the one on most things by being heavily influenced by the thoughts and attitudes of the world represented by the other. In the process I have taken up a position that is actually neither. In actual fact, I often wonder if I have any positions of my own, or if I have merely worked out my place in reaction to the forces around me.

Hence the picture of me as the empty bit in the middle of the web, the tiny hole at the center, as if what makes me what I am is woven into all the strands around me, but is, in itself, unsubstantial, invisible, almost non-being.

From a theological point of view, that makes me think of apophaticism, the discussion of God in terms of what we cannot know rather than what we know, but I have been "non-being" and reactionary for so long now, I am beginning to wonder if I will ever actually construct my own self or system of thought, rather than existing in an empty point, suspended among all the influences in my life.

But maybe I have already begun that construction process. Maybe the web itself is a part of that system. Maybe the idea that you become like those with whom you spend your time has currency. When pressed I find that I have opinions and can usually articulate them effectively. The discontinuity comes when I realize that I am no longer willing to state that my opinions must necessarily be right on all counts or for all people. With the exception of a few, dearly held and much tested core beliefs, most of what constitutes the systems of value and belief in my head are mine, and unless I am asked to share them, I rarely do.

Instead I spend my time watching and listening, and seeking to learn from and be challenged by the ideas and opinions with which I come in contact. In many ways it is a difficult place to live, being completely certain, opinionated and sure of myself like my two facebook friends might be easier, but I wonder if it isn't a harder place to be in relationship with people, to learn from others, to dialogue with the world.

Still the question remains: Will I ever have an established "system" of my own, or will I always be the empty space in the middle of the web, thinking and understanding so many conflicting things and owning so few?