Linc Ashby, Community Necessitates Physical Presence

When I was in high school I used to swing by McDonalds for breakfast almost every morning.  I usually bypassed the drive through because my grandfather was always inside.  We called him Grandy.  His mornings were ritualistic.  My grandmother would fix him a couple of fried eggs with a side of Purnell’s sausage and a glass of orange juice for breakfast every morning for over fifty years.  Then, on his way to work, he would stop and get a cup of coffee at McDonalds, which, with the senior discount, only cost him twenty-five cents, proving, once and for all, that Starbucks puts magician David Blaine to shame.  That’s where I would see him, sitting in the same corner booth surrounded by all his friends.  He was a tobacco farmer (though he never smoked the stuff because he was also a Baptist) and a painter (homes, barns, fences, whatever else), as were most of his friends that joined him around the table.  My dentist, Dr. Hayes, was usually there, too.  If we had won our basketball game the night before I always went inside.

I was thinking about Grandy a few days ago because I find myself in a community group of guys at church who enjoy making what we call “takes” (think Jim Rome) in email threads.  You don’t see the connection.  Keep reading.  Here’s how this works (and I can only assume many of you do this; in fact, blogging is one form of what I’m talking about): one of us will write a “take” on whatever topic comes to mind (like I’m doing in this article) – and it can literally be on anything (subject lines last week included suburban dude, education, repentance, poverty, hair, Olive Garden, mortgages, tidy inboxes, and Canadian healthcare) – and then the rest of us will respond.  The moderator of our group even gives an e-mailer of the week award.  I’ve never won.  Last week we exchanged over sixty emails in a single morning on a single topic.  That’s right; don’t tell our employers (I suppose this is an entirely different matter deserving of a “take”). Now, back to Grandy.  I imagine the conversations around his booth at McDonalds being quite similar, at least in spirit, to our email threads, with one profound difference – they were actually with each other when they talked.  Question: will the real community group please stand up? Don’t get me wrong.  I love the guys in my community group.  Really, I do.  We share community in every possible evangelical sense of the word (sarcastic chiding somewhat intended!).  But Grandy got me to wondering if community necessitates physical presence.  I envy him.  He lived a very full life.  He had great friends.  Everyone in our little town knew him.  He died leaving nothing behind except his home and the contents therein.  I guess he never saved for retirement because he never planned to retire.  He came to all my games no matter what sport I was playing, or what night, home or away.  He told great stories, especially on road trips (we used to make fun of him because they took so long).  He was the treasurer of his little Baptist Church; it was called Buffalo Lick and I have no idea why this name was chosen, but it was where I preached one of my very first sermons.  If I had to be honest with my community group I would say something like this: what we seem to be clamoring for through this medium (some of you think we have it; others not so much) is what my Grandy had.  If we can have what he had through this medium then so be it, but my hunch is we just can't.  I am wondering what you think.  Does community necessitate physical presence?  And if so, what does this mean for us in the 21st century when, over the course of a given week, we probably have hundreds more online conversations than we do real ones.  If there is such a thing as global community and it’s only a matter of time before it displaces any notion we have of local community, then I’m sorry, we will be the most community starved people in the history of the planet.  It seems we are trying to convince ourselves everyday that we have something we don’t know squat about (to use the language of my youth).  And yes, I’ve also been devouring another Kentuckian by the name of Wendell Berry lately.  Finally, to make this “take” incredibly paradoxical, I am this day launching and announcing my very own website - www.lincashby.com - where I hope to get to know and be known by others I do not know.    

Comments

[James Sutton]

Linc,

I'm glad you posted about this, because I've been struggling with this question myself. In fact, I fought off the whole blogging phenom for a solid year because I was worried about some of the same things you just articulated.

I think community at some point or another does neccessitate a physical presence. Know anybody who is "virtually" married? Any babies that are "virtually" nursed by their mothers? I'm over stating things a bit, but these kinds of familial relationships are the very building blocks of our communities. We can replace them with a computer -- even if someone else is on the other end of a connected one.

That said, there are obviously impersonal forms of communication that pre-date the internet, and impersonal forms of communication have their place. Books, articles, letters all serve their purposes. Webpages, blogs, youtube, and www.linkashby.com have a place too. Even things like facebook and myspace are good networking tools.

The problem arises when we start asking our blogs, webpages, and video posts to do more than they really can. Networking and a variety of methods of communication can aid in the creation of community, but they aren't community.

So, I proudly click on www.linkashby.com in order to hear more of your profound thoughts. I really enjoy reading your posts and thinking about that rich, deep voice of yours. If given the option, though, I think I'd rather hear ya pontificate over a cup of McDonald's coffee than read what you've written on some old website (and that, by the way, would be IN SPITE of the McDonald's coffee).

P.S. I love the fact that your grandfather grew tobacco but didn't smoke it because he was a Baptist. Hilarious! Perhaps that is a genetic explanation for your penchant for a paradox.

[Rob Huffstedtler]

I agree. It's one of the reasons we at RTS Virtual require students to have a local mentor who helps them figure out how to integrate what they are learning in their seminary courses with actual relationships and ministry.

The difficulty of trying to build purely "virtual" relationships is that there is no cost to them. They can be formed and dismissed almost instantly. Consequently, it's easy to make an uncharitable judgment and to not put forth the effort to truly understand a person. Also, there's no reason to bear with each other when our sinfulness gets in the way and we trample on each other's toes.

I really haven't much interest in forming new relationships online (I'm sure Linc will find that hilarious since he knows how I met my wife), but it is nice to be able to keep track of where friends from small group are, years later, when you're all dispersed to the four corners of the earth.

Christianity provides us with a tension - we recognize the importance of bodily existence and local community, but we also recognize that we are part of a community that spans not only terrestrial distances, but includes the saints who have gone on before us.