I’ll let you in on a few of the secrets.
Each week, I put out a call on Facebook for those in need of blessings. I time these calls to connect with ritual making bread for Shabbat. It is customary to set aside a portion of dough, as a token of recognition of God’s generosity, when making a large amount of bread. Fulfilling of the obligation provides a unique opportunity for prayers of healing and divine intersession. Most weeks I make a large quantity of bread and have always offered personal prayers for those who I knew were in need. But within the last year or so, I have been placing calls on social media to add names to my list.
At the beginning, I was unsure what this odd call into the wilderness would yield. Was Facebook, the forum for cute babies and cats, breaking news and political commentary a place for prayer?
The results have been instructive.
Unlike the cute baby photo of my kid that I recently posted, I don’t get a deluge of responses. Each week not many more than handful of people take me up on the offer and simply like my post and I add them to my list.
But it is not quantity that matters. Many just leave a name or a ‘like.’ Sometimes I know from their feed what the issue is, sometimes not. But opening up this venue has lead to some of the most meaningful sharing and connecting that I have experienced on social media. I have learned some amazing and difficult truths about what is going on in people’s lives.
Here is some of what I know, that you might have missed completely.
– Your friend with the perfect kids in the amazingly cute dance outfits is not sleeping at night because it has been more than a year since her husband had full time employment
– All the photos of food in fancy restaurants are the way B. recovers from another bout of bad news at the fertility clinic.
– The increased posts about the family dog are in inverse proportion to the level of affection M. is feeling for her husband. Any day now she is likely to replace her spouse of 11 years with another pet.
These are not of course the precise details of what people share with me weekly, but they are typical of the kind of sharing that does happen.
The real secret is that if we push beyond the surface sharing that typifies social media, we have the power to connect and create something truly sacred. As one father in crisis, wrote me that he was grateful for my weekly offer because he is working hard not to make his child’s suffering and trauma the focus of any more attention than it need necessarily be. But as a result, he is without support that he desperately needs. Even though he rarely remarks on my post, my weekly offers reach him like a beacon of connection in sea challenging isolation.
Prayer has that power to move us beyond the facile connections of Facebook in no small part because it offers the recognition that that there something more, possibly painfully so, than high scores on Candy Crush, sunsets on beaches, or reports of snow days. In Jewish tradition prayer is best said in a community. In no small part gathering together, physically challenges the isolation that so many of us feel.
But we need not turn to prayer to create holy or deeply meaningful connections. Consider taking a Facebook post ‘offline’, with a phone call or an email or even in person. Remind the person what they mean to you and the value they bring to your life. Take time to share some of what is going on in your life, the real stuff not just the fluff. Listen for the challenges and difficulties that they face.
That is the secret of meaningful transcendent connection.
