I'm in the Zoom Room at least once a day now. Who'd have imagined we'd become Zoom denizens just to stay connected? In his book Winning Life's Toughest Battles: Roots of Human Resilience, Julius Segal writes about what some of the American POW’s endured at the hands of their Vietnamese captors, who attempted to eradicate their sense of community by keeping them solitary. No communication between prisoners was tolerated. Few captives suffered more than Vice Admiral John Stockdale, who served 2,714 days as a POW. On one occasion his captors shackled his legs and arms and left him lying in the sunshine for three blistering days while guards beat him repeatedly to keep him from falling asleep. How would a person survive? After one beating Stockdale heard a towel snapping out in a code the POW's had devised. It was a message he would never forget. Just five letters: GBYJS. God Bless You John Stockdale. These briefest experiences of community, of being connected, became literally a lifeline in the midst of death. Segal writes, “Their devotion and urgency to make community happen in spite of unbelievable obstacles defies belief. If one man walked by another’s cell he would drag his sandals in code to send a message. Men sent messages to their comrades with the noises they made shaking out their blankets, by belching, by snoring, by blowing their noses...and by making other bodily noises that would be better left unmentioned but which are normally mastered by 10-year-old boys.” Amazing, isn't it, that where life is toughest and community is so difficult, people will move heaven and earth to have just a moment of it. Maybe we are learning the value of togetherness now that we can't have it so easily. Four weeks of apartness is taking its toll. Zoom certainly helps, and the telephone is a lifeline. But imagine how good it will feel to be together face to face again. When the experience of Community between people is at its very best, it has a name: The Church. So we've got to strive for it, even in quarantine. "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves." -- Romans 12:10