Friendship in real life

June 20, 2020

A while ago I got an email from a sweet reader who, among other things, asked the following:

I was reading the comments to your post “Will Homeschooling Make Me Lose My Sanity” and it struck me how lonely everyone posting was, and how difficult it is to find like-minded friends. We are two weeks away from a cross-country move and will be leaving behind some wonderful friends. I am apprehensive of making new friends who share our traditional mass & homeschooling approach to life. Well, I thought:

Would Auntie Leila consider a FACEBOOK GROUP –not just a page for liking your blog–but a private group for members to discuss and post and most importantly, connect and meet each other?

Believe me, Auntie Leila understands this urge. But I have resisted and I’m going to continue to resist.

In fact, I am going to recommend that you leave any Facebook group that isn’t about how to do something you do in real life, like raise your chickens, use your Instant Pot, or follow steam locomotives (these are all groups I belong to, the last one just in case there is a good video I can show my grandchildren).

If it’s a group about anything that relates to your loneliness, pain, or suffering, chances are that it is ultimately not going to help you. These groups are taking your precious time, involving you in problems that you can do little to solve, and not making your problems go away. You aren’t building your community or your future in these groups.

In fact, from what I can see, these groups will cause you to question all the good things in your life — your marriage, your children, your home.

Would an LMLD group be different? No. The reason is that it would be online. You can effectively share ideas and news online, but you can’t effectively build a real community online.

Instead, use your online contacts to form real life connections and relationships in what I have called the St. Gregory Pockets!

I am no “influencer” guru — I suppose I could have monetized my “St. Gregory Pocket” idea and charged a bunch of money to enroll people in it. I could have created a multi-level marketing scheme using other bloggers to contribute and then share… we could have a conference once a year and sell lots of swag. Believe me, we LMLD ladies have the wherewithal to do some fancy graphics and so on.

But instead I just tried to put my experience into words to encourage you, while you are young, to make real-life friends that will not only discuss books with you and bring you meals when you have a baby or are sick (and of course you will do the same for them) — but who will form a community with children who will (all too soon!) grow to be your own children’s peers. I don’t have time to whip this up into a big movement and you don’t have time to join it.

I tried to keep it simple. Making your own “pocket” of like-minded friends is certainly not a new idea, but it is one that must be recovered with some positive action, precisely by those who feel lonely and friendless! (Although it would be good if some of you who feel that you’ve gotten a good community together would share the wealth and be generous to those on the periphery.)

So the St. Gregory Pocket idea is as far from the FB group as you can get. Ideally, you wouldn’t have time to talk online because you would be so busy hosting your own real friends and meeting them at the playground. You would encourage each other instead of risking real harm online (which is what happens on FB! I’ve seen it many a time — because you can’t see each other and comments are so easy to make)… and in the end, there’s always an alpha in the group to meddle and cause mischief (or several alphas who I describe as “mean girls” just like in seventh grade, and who wants to go back there).

Picture it this way — your kids running all around the yard or playground while you visit with your friends; not you on your phone while your kids sit alone.

No, we will not be having a Facebook group… I will post the posts below so you can ponder finding or making your St. Greg’s Pocket! Much better!

bits & pieces

If you haven’t had time to listen to Leila Miller talk about marriage and divorce, perhaps this written interview will fit the bill, and be easier to share with someone you know who needs it: An Honest Conversation about the Modern Family

For Father’s Day, give your man the gift of a good conference on Fatherhood! Monday, June 22, 7:30-9 pm ET.

To understand what is happening today, we must understand history — specifically, the history of Communism: Leninthink, by Gary Saul Morson:

The whole point of Leninism is that only a few people must understand what is going on. That was the key insight of his tract What Is to Be Done? When Leninism is significant, there will always be a spectrum going from those who really understand, to those who just practice the appropriate responses, to those who are entirely innocent.

Have you heard of this dad who posts on Youtube to tell young people how to do stuff? Amazing how it has struck a nerve. Let’s be the moms who let the dads pass on knowledge and the dads who do it. Let’s build the collective memory, not tear it down.

The Bostock decision, handed down by the Supreme Court earlier this week, is a disaster. Find good analysis here — What Are the Adverse Consequences of Gorsuch’s Bostock Ruling?, here — Bostock, living a lie, and here — A Striking Display of Sophistry.

“The Christian life is a combat, a war without mercy.”

Build your home library now if you have not already started. (E-readers are convenient but no substitute for a real library.) The early not-so-distant-warnings of a cultural purge are upon us. Our LMLD Library Project will help.