My wife and I were surprised to see an old friend the other day in downtown Columbia. After the usual “how are you?”  small talk and some shuffling of feet, my wife and I learned that he was dealing with a terminal illness in his family. He’s an amazing guy, with the kind of deep and abiding faith that is expressed more in his life than in obnoxious bumper stickers or WWJD bracelets. He’s a person I deeply respect.

Ticia and I walked away, shaken by the news of impending death, and thought about the local church he is a member of, grateful for how strongly it supports him in a time of profound need. Taking care of kids, helping with food, being there to listen, praying. It’s beautiful. And it’s the way it should be. And I’m glad he has that faith family.

Reunions are often awkward events perpetuated by either 1) academic tradition or 2) the one crazy aunt in the family who believes in fairies and forced family bonding (and yes, reunions are almost always planned by women). Such events may be fading as the notion of corralling physical bodies into a common room is being supplanted by the notion of corralling virtual people into a common network.

If you’re a Millennial (born since 1980), you will never know what it feels like to re-discover your past life during that first week of Facebook frenzy. I mean, when a fourteen year-old signs up for his first FB account, he’s flooded with the man-sized responsibility of choosing his network from among his already fixed social milieu; his friends haven’t changed much from yesterday’s “X-Men are the bomb!” status to today’s “Eating Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.” But when a Gen-Xer climbs into the saddle, he discovers that the Facebook trailhead is neither linear nor simple; rather, he finds all sorts of hidden trails leading to dark, shadowy places in his past—the high school stomachaches, the college apostates, the awkward career moves, the Ghosts of Churches Past.