Facebook Birthdays

If you have been on Facebook more than a year, you have experienced it.  A Facebook birthday.  All of a sudden your wall lights up like the sky on the Fourth of July.  All other posts are pushed off your front page by the plethora of greetings that pile up there.  You feel like you finally have the popularity you coveted back in your youth.  It feels as if the whole world has stopped to recognize your day of birth.  Old friends.  New ones.  People you are not even really sure who the heck they are.  All saying happy birthday.  It feels so good.

I suppose it feels so terrific because most of us have had a birthday pass without almost no recognition.  Oh, maybe a few people you think obliged to said something, but no one really went out of their way at all to celebrate your existence.  That stinks.  As much as we might say, “Oh, it is just another day” we do not mean that deep down.  For whatever reason cultural or otherwise, a birthday without recognition is a miserable affair.  And that is why the Facebook birthday feels so terrific.  It seems to be the exact opposite of the missed birthday. 

I should say if you just want to keep enjoying them Facebook Birthdays you should stop reading here.  Just take them in and smile.

But I always think way too much too allow ignorant bliss to remain (I am not bragging.  I mourn this fact).  Is the fact that someone on one page on the internet is reminded of your birthday and types 20 characters or so on your wall really worth so much joy?   Most of these people would not have remembered the day without the handy reminder.  And even with it, if saying happy birthday required more than a click, they would not follow through.    Only because it was immensely easy did most people take note of your birthday.

However, I did not write this post just to be a downer, the proverbial party pooper.  I wrote it because I think Facebook Birthdays feel so great ultimately because we are so starved for the real caring and interaction that community should offer.  True community is so hard to find in this busy and isolated existence we call 21st American life.

And most sad of all, the same can be said for the Church.  Somehow those gathered into a family by Baptism and gathered often around an altar for the Supper still usually remain critically isolated from each other’s real lives.  We do not allow ourselves to be real around each other and so we do not develop the intimacy that should exist in the Body of Christ.  In so doing, we find it truly difficult to rejoice with the rejoicing (like on their birthdays) and to mourn with the mourning (like on their deathdays).  This should not be.  All people should be able, even if they cannot find it in any other place, to find actual though not perfect community within the Church. 

The church must confess the sinful tendency to remain sterile and guarded before God and one another.  For humility works true community, something our world needs and the Church was instituted to provide. If we had such real community, then maybe Facebook Birthdays would be just a little fun rather than something that truly moves our emotions.  Our desire for caring and interaction would already be satisfied within the body of Christ, his Church.

Let me know your thoughts.