Facebook

Nope. I'm not on Facebook. Maybe someday. I don't know. My husband is. I've been amused to check it out vicariously. People find people that they had forgotten about. They reconnect and then sometimes wish that they hadn't bothered reconnecting. But then, sometimes one Facebook friend leads to another and another and suddenly you find someone you wished you had never forgotten about. It's a place abundant with serendipity.

Tonight I had dinner with my husband an old lost friend that he found on Facebook. They knew each other for about a year about twenty three years ago. What a strange thing to reconnect to someone who knows you, sort of, from only one tiny slice of your life. This friend is a world traveler, blending theology and HIV prevention/education. He serves as a conduit for information and resources, helping local leaders set up programs to help their communities.

I listened as my husband and his friend traded stories of the past twenty three years, feeling a bit like the proverbial fly on the wall. Once those formalities were over a bit of ease entered the conversation. I discovered that my knowledge base had virtually no overlap with that of my husband's rediscovered friend. And I was fascinated by that. He could talk easily about a wide-range of topics that I was curious about, and, I like to think, the opposite was true as well. I suspect that we all could talk for hours and hours enriching and expanding each others' lives.

In what world do I meet and have dinner with an intriguing visitor from London with whom I have only the most tenuous connection? At what other time in history would this connection ever had been made? The odd power of social webs to connect people leaves me in awe.