( CNN ) -- I grew up an Air Force brat who typically moved to a new place every three years . I switched schools , made friends , then had to write letters to stay in touch when I inevitably left . Except for a precious few , most of those friends went away forever , lost to memory , fading and eventually anonymous in aging photos . But in the recurring dreams I had in my teenage years , they were all together . My friends from Oklahoma went to school with my classmates in Biloxi , Mississippi . My favorite teacher from my years in Germany got to see me grow up alongside my cousins from South Texas . It was n't until many years later , when Facebook shot past its first 100 million users , that I began to get that sensation again , the one most frequent users are now well familiar with . It 's that sense of worlds colliding , of unlikely paths crossing ; your work life , home life , past life and present all mashing together , commented upon and decorated with photos from here and from there , from then and in the now . Facebook 's enormous membership makes it a more likely spot than any other place on the English-language Web to connect with a multitude of family members , friends , former co-workers , old classmates and anyone else you have n't seen in the flesh for decades . It was n't until the May series finale `` Lost , '' however , that I made another connection -- that this idea of people coming into your life and never going away is a lot like what many people believe the afterlife is like . Could it be that Facebook , the digital Tower of Babel built by a cocky Harvard student , is -- to paraphrase singer Belinda Carlisle -- sort of like what would happen if heaven were a place on earth ? The thought led me to a theological search for the spirituality of Facebook connections . Amid the recent flood of political rants , children 's Halloween photos and YouTube videos , many of us have seen status updates from friends offering Bible passages , spiritual quotes or information on upcoming religious services . Along with a few alarming blog posts ( `` Facebook killed the church , '' one bluntly proclaimed ) , I found a lot of theologians struggling to figure out whether mobile phones , social networks and text-messaging harm their religions or help reinvent them in positive ways . There 's even debate on whether being so constantly connected to so many people is good or bad , spiritually speaking . Bruce Epperly , a theology professor , author and co-pastor in Lancaster , Pennsylvania , wrote a thoughtful piece about so-called `` Facebook theology , '' likening the `` intricate web of relationships '' in our lives to our online social network . He acknowledged that even the lowly , short-form status update can carry a profound holiness . `` It might surprise my high school friends to discover that I often pray for them as I read their posts , '' Epperly writes . `` I believe that Facebook can be an altar on the Internet and a place of spiritual awakening . '' That seems to gibe with what Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed earlier this year . In January , the pontiff suggested that priests should embrace new digital communication mediums . But he stopped short of blessing Facebook itself as a virtual holy land . Facebook , which recently passed the 500-million-user mark , grew so quickly in such a short span of time that even its creators likely have n't been able to stop and examine the spiritual significance of its near-constant presence in so many lives . To what do we owe our continually growing house of `` friends , '' the ones we never see , never call , never write to , but who contribute to our digital chatter , our daily chorus . Do n't those connections count for some kind of community ? Would n't we miss it if all these non-strangers were lost to us again ? What if Facebook itself , which digitally houses not only the living but also the `` memorial page '' dead , is a kind of pre-afterlife training where all those personal connections are forever maintained , even after you 've shuffled off this analog coil ? And if the afterlife exists , and it 's anything like Facebook , does it have an `` Unfriend '' option ? Because as much as I love all the connectedness , eternity sounds like a really long time to spend reading everyone 's status updates .
Omar Gallaga : Commingling of people from various chapters of our lives has spiritual overtones . The author went on a theological search for the spirituality of Facebook connections . Pope Benedict XVI suggested earlier this year priests should embrace digital media .