I think the great tragedy of the recent pandemic is that it has hastened our rush to abandon so-called “third spaces” seemingly at all costs.

The millions of lives lost and the many more who still suffer, not with standing, of course.

“Third spaces” is a phrase coined by sociologist Roy Oldenburg, and has increasingly been popping up across various things that I have been reading.

The phrase refers to spaces that are not our homes (first places) and our work (second places). In other words, they are neutral public spaces where you may meet people totally outside your normal social network.

A quick online search will tell you that since the pandemic, Americans are choosing to spend less time in third places. It doesn’t take clever deduction to understand this reduces the number of opportunities that we may come into contact with people who don’t look like us, who don’t think like us and maybe who don’t believe like us.

Combine this with our increasing use of digital apparatuses, including ever-isolating social media, and our dwindling participation in civic groups, and well … we’re creating very homogeneous bubbles in which we live and where we rarely happen across anyone who is different than us.

You can see the effects that it’s having on society. … And if you believe this is phooey, then you’re just deceiving yourself.

I was reminded of this sociological concept this past weekend when I traveled to watch a friend’s great-nephew ride in a championship bull riding contest.

While I’ve long been familiar with Western sports — you don’t grow up a young journalist in northern Minnesota without having covered a few local rodeos — I became more interested when our daughter started barrel racing.

So I was thrilled for the chance to see 30 or so bull riders compete for glory, because I’ll tell you there isn’t a whole lot of cash in the lower Western sports pro leagues.

At some point, while doing a bit of people watching between riders, it dawned on me that I probably stuck out like a sore thumb.

I was the dude wearing the wrong kind of cowboy hat, the Hawaiian button-up shirt, dress shorts and a comfortable pair of cross-trainer sneakers in anticipation of the uneven ground. (I am of a certain age, after all.)

It wasn’t your typical wear among the hundreds of people present, you might say. And, you know what, I didn’t draw the attention of a single person.

We were all there for the same reason: the cowboys and the bulls. Everything else was immaterial.

Friends … we’re increasingly missing this crucial piece of creation experience, the being together with random strangers who help open our eyes and teach us things about this immensely beautiful universal Body of Christ. Amen.

Devlyn Brooks is the CEO of Churches United in Moorhead, Minn., and an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America serving Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. He blogs about faith at findingfaithin.com, and can be reached at devlynbrooks@gmail.com.