A New Friend

When I started this blog a couple of years ago it was partly to get my thoughts down for posterity but also with a hope that I could meet a few people along the way who could at least relate on some level with where I’m at, where I’ve been or where I’ may be heading. While I have picked up a few followers along the way — thank  you, all — I had no idea that one day I would have a chance to meet one in person.

Last week I had the opportunity to enjoy some good food, delicious beer and wonderful conversation with Clive, a commenter who found me awhile back on this site and has since contributed a bit here and there. Although he currently lives in Indonesia, he was back in the States for a few weeks and found himself within an hour’s drive of me on his last night here, so we made plans to get together. I rarely have opportunities for such genuine, face-to-face conversations and so I treasure each one. This was no exception.

When having discussions online it is very easy to maintain aesthetic distance, be a little less friendly and even a little more bold than in-person, especially when one blogs under a pseudonym as I do. That’s fine for making an argument or trying to prove a point, but it doesn’t allow for the same type of connection that occurs when two people meet in real life. That’s not to say that I haven’t made some good connections with people online, but it’s much easier to play one’s cards closer to the vest while typing to an invisible person on the other side of a computer screen, even when being brutally honest. The anonymity doesn’t open one up to the risk of being hurt as easily as in-person, but conversely it doesn’t allow for the potential reward of forming a deeper connection. I now know Clive as I never would have been able to know him via blog comments or emails. And for that, I am grateful.

As for the conversation, since he is a Christian and I am not, we obviously spoke a lot about religion, God and atheism, but it was amicable the entire way. We were just two guys who happened to disagree about a few things, but still part of the bigger tribe that is Humanity. Even if I can’t get on board with his religious beliefs and the whole idea of “missions” in general — no matter how one defines it — I can tell that his heart is to care for, educate and love the Indonesian people in his local “tribe”, and I’m all for that.

I will probably go back to radio silence, as it were, after this post, but I just felt it important to get this out there. Sometimes among all the in-fighting between Christians and atheists in chat rooms, comment threads and elsewhere, it’s easy to forget the reality that there is another human being on the other side of that user name, pseudonym or no. I was thankful to be reminded of that this last weekend.