Friendship Comes In All Ways

I have been blessed with some really great friendships.  I still keep in touch with some people from my first eight years living in Illinois.  And my many years in New Jersey brought me incredible friends through school and church.  I’m looking forward to meeting up with a few of these friends in a couple of weeks for our annual camping trip.  My time at college was also a great place for friendships.  As a matter of fact, I met my best friend and soul mate at this small school in western Pennsylvania.  Since I’ve been married, I’ve added to my list of great friendships through our church family, through our neighborhoods, through scouting, and through my job.

One place that has brought me a couple of interesting friendships is the internet.  I’m not promoting the careless release and exchange of information with complete strangers.  But I am intrigued by the value of discovering people on-line who can push you to greater heights, who can speak to your soul, who can relate to your interests, and who can give you something to think about.

I believe I have found this kind of friendship via the wonders of social media.  Over the past few months, I have been sharing blogs, tweets, status updates, and chat conversations with a new friend, Michael Shaw.  Michael blogs about his town, Skippack, PA, so he lives near me.  Based on our shared communication, I believe we share some common aspirations for living our life to the fullest and making a difference in this world.  Tomorrow night, we will have the opportunity to meet up face-to-face for what is sure to be an interesting interaction as we continue our conversation minus the technology that connected us in the first place.

I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes.

Stay tuned.

Michael, I’ll see you tomorrow at the Cabana Bar in Skippack.