21st Century Friendship, Facebook, and Incarnation

I was invited to be someone's "friend" on Facebook. So I decided to join and filled out all the obligatory profile stuff. Maybe it's just me, but something about this strikes me as strange. All of my explorations of spirituality lead me toward being vulnerable and willing to accept and interact with the vulnerable other in order that we may both experience a fuller participation in life and the divine dance.

But posting pix and profiles and trading news doesn't seem very intimate and vulnerable. I suppose it could be if you're willing to risk really putting your interior out there on the web for all the world to see. Still, call me old-fashioned but I like talking face-to-face and being able to hug a friend or give them a pat on the back or a back rub when they need encouragement. But, given how mobile we are and how spread to the four winds, this may have to suffice for much of friendship in the modern context.

So is prayer and worship more than asking to be God's friend? Is prayer embodied and thus more vulnerable and intimate? Or is God so "other" that the best relationship we can have is something akin to Facebook? I know incarnation helped us see God's love more clearly and made it more personal. But even with Jesus sitting at God's right hand and sending the Holy Spirit, sometimes I wish I could experience God with flesh on. In the here and now. Or is that the role of the church? If it is, I think we're not doing a very good job sometimes of putting flesh on God's love and reaching out to people who are lonely and detached from everyone.

Let me know what you think.

Frank