Dropping In

Facebook conversation threads are ripe fodder for blogging thoughts.

Yesterday, my friend Jen, who's just moved out to Wyoming after living in the East all her life, noted on Facebook that nobody drops in at her house anymore. And she misses it.

When was the last time you dropped in, unannounced, at a friend's home? When's the last time someone dropped in on you?

I think dropping in is one of the lost arts of our modern society. As a matter of fact, I think visiting in general is getting lost. We don't know how to visit, without a mission! We must have a reason to stop and knock. Being friends isn't enough.

We go to people's houses for movies, or football, or a Bible study, or perhaps we drive many miles for a vacation to visit family.

But just dropping in? To talk?

Tell me, if you dropped in on someone, would it make them nervous for you to sit there in their living room, talking of nothing and everything, in no particular hurry to leave?

My parents are fortunate enough to live in a "dropping-in" community -- it's a retirement neighborhood consisting mostly of people from their church denomination. They have much in common. They are usually at home. They are retired. So they drop in. And what wonderful impromptu tea parties my mother has given, and has received!

My friend Jen had this in her old city also. She'd lived there many years, raised their kids, attended church, worked, and basically built up a huge reservoir of locals who felt familiar and free enough to knock on the door and walk in.  It helps to have teenagers, although I have a few teenagers, and mine must be the kind that drop in elsewhere, instead of bringing hordes of friends home.  (They hint that it's because Adam and I are too unusual for their friends.)

Dropping in.  I think we should miss it. I think it should be happening up and down our little streets and boulevards. I think it would make us slow down, converse, listen, love, smile, and remember that face-to-face friends, who need nothing but affection as a reason to visit, are the best kind.