The Bible Belt Samson Guy. Rob's Update On His Virtual Samson Society Meeting Experience.

I've been attending the "Make Thursdays Great Again" (7 PM CST) virtual Samson Society group for close to two months now, and I feel guilty about it.

There is such a huge chunk of my midlife that's been measured weekly by Jackson Mississippi Samson Society meetings.  It all started in August of 2014 with the Wednesday night face-to-face meeting at First Baptist Jackson.  From there, I began attending the Sunday night face-to-face meeting at Grace Crossing Church in Gluckstadt.  Then finally, I began to facilitate my own face-to-face group at Lakeside Presbyterian Church in Brandon (which I did for four years).  Too, I've attended face-to-face meetings at Truitt Baptist Church in Pearl along with a handful at Crossgates.

I vividly recall attending my first National Samson Society retreat a number of years ago and hearing Mr. Nate Larkin pitch the virtual meeting push.  And this was well before anyone was even remotely thinking about pandemics.  Immediately I discounted it as "Samson lite", feeling almost disrespected by the notion of this conceivably inequivalent web-based facsimile.    

But this snap judgement was all rooted in my genuine coziness with the face-to-face paradigm.  For it's what I was reared on. 

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When I began working for the State of MS back in 2006, my expertise & interest in facilitating small meetings served me well as a Staff Architect.  Bringing together architects and engineers alongside using agency reps was simply my thing.  It was a proven methodology for moving projects through the planning phase.  During my six-year tenure there, I must have participated in 1,000 meetings, if I attended one.  Similarly, during my one-year jaunt at Delta State University, this meeting trend furthered until it all came to an abrupt halt in September of 2013 due to my termination (for breaking the institution's IT policy).

I immediately lost +/-14 pounds and could no longer sleep more than four hours a night.  The emotional trauma due to the job loss took its toll immediately on my psyche combined with my physiology.  

I've repeatedly described the job loss like being thrown off a cliff face.  Yet, a sizable portion of breaking my freefall was my introduction to that First Baptist Church face-to-face Samson Society meeting two years later.  

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My Silas and I talk once a week.  He's an old friend who's known me intimately throughout some of the most difficult (whilst living in MS) seasons of his life.  As such, he's sensitive enough to my vocal inflections to question my state of mind on the fly.  Today (during our weekly chat) was no different.  Hence, my opportunity to lament my state of mind thanks to his respectful prod.

I have so much aforementioned history / experience / "training" related to face-to-face meetings.  Plus, I simply feel as if, by now going virtual, I've insipidly sold out to an idea that I initially scoffed at.  

Yet, what I love about the virtual meeting format is how emotionally streamlined it is.  Everything's contained (my Silas' descriptor) so effectively versus the face-to-face paradigm.  A paradigm which elicits an awful lot of spillover, at least for me.  The virtual meetings don't leave me with heady emotional fallout that demands (of Rob) much, if any, follow-up processing.  Instead, I can just move on to the next thing with aplomb.

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Another circumstantial question that's been creeping into my brain as of late is regarding the notion of being a tenured (gray haired) Samson guy who's simply outgrown his regularly scheduled programming (face-to-face setup).  And this is probably the most audacious factor for me to wrestle with.  For I do not want to identify as such when I don't feel this way internally.  Combined with that, I default towards the Samson Society meeting experience as one that really shouldn't have any chronological narrative attached to it.  Every meeting is, in many ways, your first meeting, or at least it should be.  Whether face-to-face or virtual.  But that's simply not a true statement, even though it does, to some degree, feel that way (for me).

In closing, I know a number of guys who've not transitioned as I have from the face-to-face meeting format to virtual.  Many have simply let go of Samson Society entirely once the face-to-face offerings became unavailable or they grew fatigued / found difficulty in maintaining the pace.  Had it not been for my aforementioned early (& continued) exposure towards the explosive growth of the virtual paradigm via the National Samson Society retreats, I would have likely done the same.  

Thanks be to God for this guilt.  It justifiable, humbling, and not unlike that same freefall I experienced back in 2013.  And this time, in a rebellious sort of mindset, I kind of like it.