Facebook? Not so Much!

I have three thoughts that are swirling around my brain this evening.  Don’t know how they might be related.  However, I think they are.

My daughter, my husband and I made the monthly pilgrimage to St. Francis for the Traditional Latin Mass yesterday.  First we drive to our daughter’s house that is 35 minutes away from us.  Then she drives the other 35 minutes to the Church.  (If you have read previous postings, you know that we don’t trust our car to go great distances.)

The Gospel according to St. Luke was about the 10 lepers that were cured and only one came back to thank Jesus; and he was a Samaritan (foreigner.)  Every time I read this passage, I am reminded first that we need to be thankful each and every day to God and then that we should express our thanks to those who serve us in some way.  We need to be grateful.

My daughter serves us in so many ways and I can never thank her enough especially for leaving her family on a Sunday morning when she is only 10 minutes from her own Catholic parish Church and going with us.  She has been doing this for about 3 years, now, and she is so lovely for doing it.

We were taught to be thankful when we were growing up.  If someone gave us a present, we thanked them, and most of the time, in writing.  Phone calls came to replace the handwritten notes although I still try to write the note if I can.  I tried to raise my children the same.  Not so sure that it “took” because their grandma would always complain that they didn’t call her to let her know that they got her birthday cards or her Christmas presents.  I’m not going to judge.  I’m just going to say that it seems that the younger people think they are too busy to say thanks.

Charlie and I get very few thanks nowadays.  When we receive a present, we try to call immediately to say thank you, not only for expressing appreciation,but to let the person know that we got something from them in the mail so they wouldn’t be wondering.  However, we have wondered a lot.  I worried because I would send cash to grandchildren and never know if they received it or not until I asked.  I have stopped sending presents to the grandchildren because I haven’t gotten a thanks from them in years.  I love them, though, so they receive cards with no money or checks in them.

Some will say that one doesn’t give to get thanks, and I guess I can agree.  But, don’t you think that if more people said, “Please?” and “Thank-you.”  it might be a better place out there?  If they picked up the phone and called?  If they let you know that you matter enough to get a “thanks.”  I guess I can relate to Jesus in this story.  How sad He must have felt about the other 9.

My other thoughts are related after all.  When I was getting my Ph.D. 21 years ago, we did very little online.  I used a computer to do my statistics for my experiments and used a word processor to write my dissertation.  I knew what was coming though and actually did a paper on people living in Electronic Caves.  Enter smart phones, i-pads, Facebook, etc. and my predictions came true.

People think a Facebook post can take the place of a phone call.  A text message can take the place of a face to face.  There are very few social niceties because there are very few social interactions.  If one never has to talk, really talk, to someone then that person is nothing to them.  And one can treat a nothing very badly indeed.

One of the reasons that I am off Facebook right now is what passes for discourse on Social Media sites.  If someone is going to tell me to “shut the h— up,” I want them to have the grace and courage to tell me in person.  Or call me.  I’ll thank you for it.

Note:  This blog and my Twitter account are linked with my FB account so some people might think that I am still on there.  I am not.  If something really important happens that you want me to know, call me, please.  Or put it on the family grapevine.  I talk to my daughters and sister at least once a week.