I think it's the toxic onslaught of Jenner-related posts in the last few weeks, but my time on Facebook has not been pleasant lately. I won't be tweeting Mark Zuckerberg with my whining complaints, or sending nasty comments. It's not Facebook per se (What IS Facebook? Is it software? Is it an app? Is it a website?) it's what's ON Facebook. I love the IDEA of Facebook, and I've endured its multiple new algorithms without giving up and jumping ship to Twitter (I'm not pithy enough), or *gasp* Instagram (I'm not cool enough).

But Facebook is getting on my nerves. If you know me you know that's pretty much a first. I don't know if my FB friends have become dramatically more annoying or if my post-hysterectomy hormones are making me crotchety, or if the latest algorithm is pushing the most irritating posts to the top of my feed, or if I've suddenly become hypersensitive to what I read, but for the last few weeks I just feel perturbed by Facebook.



Oh, I'm not talking about the new baby pictures from my friends, or the funny memes, or the birthday greetings, or the "I got a new job!" updates or the posts from my friend who married the wine merchant and travels to Paris multiple times a year... yeah, she's my jealousy test. (Can you REALLY rejoice with those who rejoice, or are you just faking it?) I don't even mind the "this is what's for dinner" posts or the "I just exercised" posts (I'm guilty of the latter, it keeps me accountable).

Seriously, I like (no, I really LIKE, not just click on the button) your memes, and your recipes, and your weather reports, and your accomplishments and weddings and new babies, and your vacay pics. (OK, the vacay pics might make me jealous, but that's not your problem, it's mine). I like your updates on your pets and your kids. I like knowing you're out there, living your life, while I'm here, living mine. It makes me feel connected, and that's nice.

I don't even mind when you share your failures and struggles. Those times when the excrement has hit the fan and you need prayer. When life dealt you a lousy hand and you just want someone to notice. Yeah, I understand, even though sometimes it makes me cry, and sometimes it makes me angry on your behalf.

It's the onslaught of copied and pasted knee-jerk reactionary posts tha are poisoning my Facebook feed. Not just the "I have such and so opinion" posts... those are fine. It's the manipulative opinionated posts that are driving me to click that X in the upper right-hand corner. You know the ones I'm talking about... they're specifically designed to get a reaction, to twist your emotions, not just to share information. Here are some examples:

1. If you like (fill in the blank... veterans, soldiers, the flag, the National Anthem, yoga, Jesus, frogs, whales, stray dogs) you must share or like this post. No... no I mustn't. Don't tell me what to do! I avoid those posts even when I agree with their message, just because they are so manipulative.

2. If you believe in (fill in the blank) you MUST share this post. This one is particularly aggravating. I believe in Jesus, but I don't have to share some meme on Facebook to announce that. To borrow a fiction writing rule, SHOW don't TELL. If you want to share your faith on social media, come up with a better method, please.

3. Political posts, of all genres. Seriously... are you sharing that post about the Kardashians (or anyone remotely connected to them) because you are genuinely concerned about their eternal souls, or because you want to jump on the bandwagon with your valuable opinion about big butts... Oh, wait, is that not the latest big Kardashian money-maker? See how that works? I know, I'm a cynic. Seriously, if you're that distraught over the moral condition of humanity, get off "the Facebook" and go pray, or send "good vibrations" like Pope Francis suggested, for those who don't pray.

4. Things you wouldn't show your mother/boss/pastor/children. Because, DUH. Along the same lines, if you wouldn't say it to someone's face, why would you think it's OK to share on Facebook? And that applies to people you know personally AND people you don't know. In other words, if you don't have something NICE to say, keep your mouth shut and your fingers off the share button.

5. Super-sad news stories that don't need to be shared because sharing the tears accomplishes nothing productive. (Particularly true if it concerns dogs and small children.) I'm not talking about PERSONAL posts that are sad, I'm talking about the news story that ran six months ago on a station halfway across the country. It's just morbid. Stop it.

6. Super-scary news stories that don't need to be shared because:
A. Most of them aren't even true (please, peeps, FACT-CHECK before you share... it's the Internet equivalent of wearing a condom. Don't spread the deception disease!)
B. Will sharing this terrifying news that your lipstick is likely to kill you actually BENEFIT anyone? And, even if you think it will, has this information already circulated around the Internet six gajillion times? Just because it's new to you doesn't mean it's NEW. In fact, it probably made the chain email loops a decade or so ago and some bright individual decided to resurrect it and post it on Facebook.

Keep sharing your thoughts and your news about your day and where you went for lunch and pictures of your new house/car/iguana and interesting things you see and read, and weird stories about your crazy, wild, wonderful life, and when you're depressed or sick or ready to throw in the towel, and when you're on top of the world because you lost 10 pounds or quit smoking or won the lottery, or whatever.

Maybe we all need an Emily Post Guide to Etiquette for Facebook. For the whole Internet. Maybe that would help. I don't know, but in the meantime, I might go check out Instagram. Supposedly, it's all about the filters...

I have 870 friends on Facebook.
Yes, that sounds just like that silly commercial, and yes, that commercial is pretty accurate.
That said...
The whole "unfriending" thing has me in a quandary.
I may "block" your posts, I may "unsubscribe" from your status updates, but I won't "unfriend" you.

Why?

Because even though I might not want to read your absurd tirades about whatever random subject you are ranting about today, and I might not want to deal with your illiterate, uneducated comments on my posts, I refuse to delete you from my life the way our ancestors erased and obliterated their less-than-upstanding family members. We all have 'em... the girl with the erased face who humiliated her family by getting pregnant out of wedlock, or the missing head in the family portrait that belonged to the guy who entered into an interracial union. (And we won't even mention the pictures with the gay, divorced, or otherwise shunned family members.)


Seriously, if you are my friend on Facebook, I count you as a friend. I may disagree with you. I may have to squeeze my eyes shut when you comment on a post. I may even have to "block" you or "unsubscribe" in order to protect that fragile state I call "peace of mind," but I won't unfriend you. I like to think I'm more mature than that.

Just because I disagree with you, find you annoying, or want to slap some sense into you, doesn't mean I don't consider you a friend. It just means I consider you a friend with issues which I hope you (or I, or both) will outgrow.

Molasses in winter.

photo by technicool	via PhotoRee

Watching paint dry.
The church accepting change.

#1 and #2 are classic cliches. In my opinion, #3 should be.

A friend sent me a link to the following article, in which a professor of theology alleges that social networks like Facebook and the like are to blame for a decline in church attendance and participation. (to read the whole article, click here)

Seriously? We're pointing our holier-than-thou fingers at Facebook and Twitter now?

photo by Daniel Y. Go	via PhotoRee

I also came across the following link this week: "If Jesus Were on Facebook," and shared my opinions about "Would Jesus Tweet?"  almost two years ago.

Personally, I think Jesus would use (is using) every available method and means to share His message of love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness with the world. Technology doesn't frighten Him ... We haven't even progressed to the point of understanding the technology Daniel, Ezekiel, and John prophesied about!

We, as believers, SHOULD be on the cutting edge of technology, art, creativity, design, etc., because the creative God lives in us! In prior centuries, the greatest works of music and art and literature were created by Christians, an expression of the Spirit of God dwelling within them. Nowadays in the body of Christ, creative expression is either questioned, blamed, or curtailed by rules and guidelines and limitations.

It's time for those who love God, who endeavor to follow the example of the Christ, to reclaim the creative arts for the gospel ... including technology and social networking. Instead of dragging our feet into each new activity, perhaps it's time for the church to welcome new methods and ways of connecting humanity and sharing the truth.

Just a thought.

I'm tired of mean people.
From the president to the local pastor, our society seems to have decided to "take the gloves off" when it comes to expressing disagreement with someone's life, ministry, service, opinion, political party, or behavior.

Just a few weeks ago I started following a blog about frugal living. (Under $1000 Per Month) Much to my surprise, one of the posts last week was the blogger's announcement that she was considering quitting blogging because of vicious personal attacks in the comment section. This isn't a blog about politics, religion, or sex. It's a personal chronicle of one family's attempts to live a frugal lifestyle. The comments ranged from slightly snippy to downright cruel and threatening. No one FORCED these folks to read her blog. They didn't pay to read her posts, and she has no authority over them, yet they felt perfectly justified in launching a volley of verbal abuse her way. Why? Because they disagreed with something she said?

Then I read a post from Brandilyn Collins, whose suspense writing and Christian testimony I admire. She received a letter from a reader berating a book she and her daughter wrote together. Now, the individual could have stopped with, "I didn't like this book," (although why we need to tell a writer we disliked their book is a mystery to me, they already wrote it, published it, and can't do anything about it), the person continued with a personal attack on Brandilyn's faith, her parenting ability, and her Christian witness. Yikes!

My kids (who are stubbornly opinionated about everything) are frequently involved in heated political debates on Facebook with their cousins and their cousins' friends. Is that bad? No.

We do still live in a free country, the last time I checked, and we still have the right to freedom of speech. But when an adult woman gets involved in said debate between teenagers and resorts to name-calling and personal attacks because she doesn't like their political opinions, something's wrong.

When someone thinks it's acceptable to hang an effigy of the president in a building in Georgia, and the comments following the news story say things like "too bad it wasn't the real thing," and "the only way to solve this problem is with another civil war," something is dreadfully wrong with our nation.

When I was little and threw a temper tantrum my mother would send me to my room with the admonition, "Don't come out until you can be civil." 

To be "civil" means to be courteous and polite. It's interesting that the words civilization and citizen are directly related to the word civil, and the word polite and political have the same roots. Courtesy is the act of being kind and considerate of another.

Can we express our disapproval of a situation, our disagreement with a position or opinion, in a civil manner? Or must we resort to name-calling, stick-throwing, Neanderthal methods of self-expression? Add to that the use of foul (and frequently misspelled) language and the picture of our culture today becomes one of a society of  poorly educated, out-of-control, angry people who resort to abuse and manipulation and lies in order to prove that they are "right."

A minister whose teaching I enjoy once said that if your highest calling in life is to attack other people, that's a very low level of living indeed. Another minister said since the devil is referred to in Revelation as "the accuser of the brethren," we ought to take care not to get lumped into the same category.


Let's rise up to a higher standard than the one set by brawling toddlers and dog packs.
Let's be civil to each other. We're all old enough to know what that means.

~Niki
 

Image by Stewf via Flickr

I watched someone die today.

Image by .faramarz via Flickr

She was murdered.
Her death was captured on video and broadcast from Tehran on YouTube. She was shot during a protest of the Iranian presidential elections. The participation of women in the protests has earned the conflict between citizens and government the nickname "Lipstick Revolution."
I confess, I haven't kept up with the news very well in the past few weeks. I'm not entirely sure what's going on over there. In an effort to keep myself informed about current events, I checked on some news stories on the Internet. I ended up on YouTube, of all places, watching unedited videos of riots and protests posted by Iranian citizens without government (or media) interference.
After the disturbing images disappeared from my screen, I was left with this thought: Will I see her in heaven? Did anyone ever share the gospel of Christ Jesus with her? Did she have an opportunity to know the One who loves her more than life? It wasn't God who killed that young woman. Hatred killed her. Hatred given free rein.
And as I skim through the tweets on Twitter from fellow ministers and believers, and read the posts on Facebook, and clear my e-mail box of all the anti-Obama forwards sent by well-meaning friends and family, my heart trembles for my own nation, and for the body of Christ.
There's a wave of hatred that's been allowed to run rampant in the church, and in our nation. Hatred is hatred, whether it's in Iran or in the United States. Hatred of illegal immigrants, Muslims or Democrats. Hatred for our president, and don't even bring up the vice president! Hatred of gays, hatred of liberals or hatred of Republicans and fundamentalists. Name a cause, a tenet, a doctrine, an opinion, a position, a group... there's someone out there ready to hold up a sign and start picketing against it.
If we aren't careful, hatred will creep in and start killing us, too.

"But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes."

1 John 2:11