It was a summer day in 2013.
I walked into a room of 8-10 young people and was stunned by the silence. They were sitting together and not saying a word, a room full of people with a common goal to serve the people in the hospital, waiting in silence for their next assignment.
I broke the silence.
It is so quite in here …. not my lifetime experience with teenagers with whom I have engaged for a lifetime.
The young man behind the desk said, "They are all chatting with their friends."
I love this medium. I truly do. It helps me to make many, many new friends and stay in touch with others, but all the wonderful energy and the great bank of ideas and experience in that room and none of the people were benefiting from it by getting to know each other and look into each others eyes and clasp hands in new friendships.
"CIVILISATION is not to be judged by the rapidity of communication, but by the value of what is communicated." ~G.K. Chesterton: "Illustrated London News," 'America and Barbarism.' Feb. 16, 1907.
I am sure that much of value was communicated, but, in that potentially wonderful community of the moment, much was lost.
So much more could have been said and so much more than could be said, might have been conveyed if we had but lived in the moment and celebrated the physical presence of those around us … by being present ourselves.
Pastor Tom's Community 
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