Deborah, a new MySpace friend just wrote a worthy blog posting (http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=398252149&blogId=536613202) about a friend whose child has a severe form of muscular dystrophy (MD) called “Duchennes”, and about the attempt to address the disease using a FaceBook “Cause” application. The FaceBook friends she invited to join this cause, only a few did so. She concluded that much “love and “friendship” on the internet is so shallow as to be worthless in addressing the real human tragedies we face. She remarked that if she could trade her ability to play music and make art to somehow help this child be well and whole, she would gladly do so.
Being at best a reluctant participant in FaceBook, I confess that I would not have agonized over a decision to ignore the “Cause” invitation. We all have to make decisions and set priorities about involvement in who and what we support. Earlier in my life, when there were maybe four or five commitments that I might choose to make at a given time, I sometimes chose to make all of them, but now, when there are hundreds or thousands, I still have to limit myself to maybe four or five at a time that I judge to be most important. The internet has made me aware of hundreds of possibilities, but it has not expanded my ability to respond effectively to them, and it has not made ranking them easy either.
Because of the upcoming Fourth-of-July holiday, I was reminded of a young man I knew several years ago who was dying of mitochondrial disease, which, like DuChennes, is a genetically-transmitted disease. His mother suffered from guilt at having passed the fatal genes on to her son; she was alternately angry and depressed and no-one could comfort her properly. He was confined to bed and a wheel chair, intermittently in pain and always tired. A few years before, he had acted in a youth theater group that my daughter was involved in, and his acting had been sensitive and energetic. Now he could draw and write a little, but mainly spent his time sleeping. I had been hired at a low wage to take care of him for a certain number of hours per week and to see to it that he got out into the world and fulfilled some of his wishes before he became too weak to do so. One of his wishes was to go to the Fourth-of-July fireworks, and I was the one who drove him to the high school where the display took place. I had to haggle with the parking attendants to get a spot near the front. Once parked, he told me he was too weak to get out of the car into the wheelchair, so we watched the fireworks from the car. I know how important each such interaction can be, but which such situation comes into each of our individual lives and awarenesses is dependent on factors outside our conscious control.
When someone I know or have known well has a serious accident or illness but is not physically nearby, in the old days, I might not even hear about it for months. Now, the internet brings all such pieces of news to me instantly. Denise and I have relatively little money, so that the few dollars we could scrape up to help a hurting friend are rarely meaningful. We can pray, we can sign petitions and so on. If the friend is someone who lives nearby, we can and usually do do more.
I don’t think the “Internet Family” is meant to be an effective solution to all the ills that beset us, and I’m uncomfortable with most of Facebook’s conventions that are supposed to show support. I can’t avoid FaceBook entirely, but I rarely go there with joy in my heart. I feel that the social internet is best at inspiring us to be hopeful and creative, and that LiveJournal and MySpace are better for that purpose.
There is no tradeoff between creative activity and compassion for suffering. They are both there and need to be addressed by us as they enter compellingly into our lives.
