Let's get back to going crazy with togetherness

​Stephen King once said, ""If we don't have each other, we go crazy with loneliness. When we do, we go crazy with togetherness."

Yesterday, I met in person with the team I work with at my state job. A 'real life' meeting. My boss gathered all 12 of us together in her back yard. It was the first time we'd been together in 18 months.

EIGHTEEN.

MONTHS.

In fact, there were 3 new people on the team I'd never met on the other side of a screen.

I was sitting at one end of the table with folks whose offices used to be closest to mine back when offices were a thing. The folks I used to cut up with the most. The folks who may have helped me get our wing of the building labeled the 'party wing.' Which, depending on how hard people were trying to work in other wings, wasn't always said with affection......

Well, it didn't take long before we were cutting up again. And there I was, laughing uncontrollably, the tears rolling down my face, folks at the other end of the table wondering what on earth we had to drink in our cups.

The truth is we were drinking water.

The truth is what we were laughing about wasn't really that funny at all.

The truth is we were going crazy with togetherness.

It became official in my world yesterday. There is nothing the online world can do to replicate real world togetherness. I'm not saying the online world doesn't have a role in connection, it does, but IT IS NOT togetherness.

Our team has been meeting online once a week for the last 70 weeks. And yesterday, I felt more togetherness - more alive - in that one 60 second burst of laughter than I'd felt in our 140 hours of online meeting time combined.

In that one moment of going crazy with togetherness, I came to fully understand just how crazy I was going with loneliness. I knew I was lonely; yesterday I discovered just how unhealthy that loneliness has been.

Not just for me, but for all of us.

Yesterday, I discovered there is no replicating the most important part of our churches. There is no replicating the most important part of our employment. There is no replicating the most important part of our schools. There is no replicating any of that because there is no remotely close substitute for what happens when two or more lives are sharing the same space together.

As much as I value the chance for you and I to come together in this space in the mornings to share our minds and hearts, we are not sharing our lives here. Life happens when we are doing life together. I like to think this is a good space to make us better at doing life together.

There is an unseen and often unspoken value that comes with just being near one another. Physically near. When we are tens or hundreds or even thousands of miles away in a screen, no words close that distance. No words hold the same power to connect humanity that proximity holds.

When we can't share that proximity, being online together is a great way to fill that gap. I'm thankful for it. But I think it's time we get more committed to eliminating the gap than filling it.

It's time we get back to going crazy with togetherness.