You’re Amazing!!!!!!!!!!

There was a newspaper article a few weeks ago where Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church for England and Wales (note the absence of Scotland there!), suggested that social networking websites, texting and e-mails were undermining community life. People were no longer having face to face encounters with real people, but were stuck behind a computer, or hunched over a mobile phone, “talking” to cyber friends. People were losing the skill of reading a person's mood or body language. It was all having a very "dehumanising" effect on our lives.

I doubt that I would ever have found my brother Mike without Facebook. I can’t see that Mike would have written a letter, or made a telephone call or simply just turned up on my doorstep one sunny afternoon. It is more likely that being on the computer anyway, writing one of his witty articles for Costa Life Magazine, he would have popped over to Facebook to see who was posting…and found me.

I confess to liking Facebook! I have 72 “friends” some of whom I have met face to face, some of whom I share more than a few chromosomes with and some whose names I know from the interests we have in common. There are one or two genuine “strangers”.

What I really like about Facebook at the moment is one of the messages that pop up in my notifications. It says, in capital letters “YOU’RE AMAZING!!!!!!!!” It is linked to an on going poll about who likes who! I rarely make the top ten of the best liked among my friends, but I find that the words YOU’RE AMAZING lift my spirit! It may only be a computer generated message to tell me to waste a little bit more time selecting ten of my pals to nominate, but sometimes I just need to be reminded that I am, indeed, amazing!

I have to admit that I would rather someone told me face to face that I am amazing. Over this whole year so far I think I have been pretty amazing! We all need someone to tell us that we are amazing, rather than have them scrutinize our lives to highlight the not-so-amazing things that we do!

I challenge myself! Don’t leave it up to a computer generated message to say to someome “YOU’RE AMAZING!!!!!!!!”

Coming Out of the Facebook Closet

I have only myself to blame! I got involved in a conversation with a group of young people about Buddhist enlightenment…as you do. I am neither a Buddhist nor enlightened.

I was trying to explain the concept of enlightenment, not merely as knowing more information, or knowing facts that you didn’t know before. It is, apparently, a new way of looking at things.

A Facebook friend of mine had posted an account of a near-miss with a neighbour’s bullet….that brush with death scenario. It has produced in her an appreciation for life and for all that Jesus had done for her. She was looking at things differently. So, I was using my friend’s experience to illustrate what enlightenment might be like – a new way of looking at things.

The young people were not as impressed with the account of the brush with death and all the repercussions, as with the knowledge that I had a Facebook page! This really impressed them! They wanted to how many friends I had, whether they were “real friends” or cyber pals.

I suppose I should have anticipated the next move. “So and so has added you as friend on Facebook.” is becoming a regular tag in my emails. They tracked me down!

Despite having a Facebook page (and a My Space page…and a Shoutlife page…and a blog…) I am a surprisingly private person. I can’t imagine that anything I get up to can be that interesting to someone young enough to be my granddaughter!

I am “friends” with some of my nieces and nephews. I have had my fill of the pouting poses of a zillion photographs! So you will understand why for the most part I am politely refusing to be friends.

Tending the Soul

A friend persuaded me to open a “facebook” page a couple of months ago. I even managed to track down a fairly decent photo for the page to replace the androgynous grey image in the photo box. It allows me to maintain some form of connection with people. I like keeping an auntie’s eye on my two nieces who seem to post a million pouting poses of themselves and their friends every day. Oh, the exuberance and the vanity of the young!

There seems to be a lot of applications and programmes to play with too. I kind of drowned for a while in a half dozen word puzzles, and now I am spending my time sending and receiving plants for a cyber-garden. Occasionally I have to wield a cyber rake to get rid of my cyber leaves, or feed a cyber bone to a cyber dog that seems to have found a way under the cyber fence that no doubt needs a few cyber nails to repair it!

As I send out plants I am apparently saving square feet of the rainforest – the real rainforest, not the cyber one!

Underneath the green space of my garden there are some interesting statistics that tell me not just who of my cyber pals have contributed most of the plants, but also who else, apart from me is raking up the cyber leaves and feeding the cyber dog in my garden.

It goes without saying, but I will say it anyway, that I wish that in real someone would come into my real garden. There are no leaves the rake up, but the doggy do left by the non-cyber-dog that makes free with my lawn – it would be nice if someone scooped it up!

I bought a book at the weekend. “Finding Our Way Again” by Brian MacLaren. He talks about the need to tend the soul. Left unattended, our soul, he suggests, “will become a stale room, an obnoxious child, a vacant lot filled with thorns, weeds, broken bottles, raggedy grocery bags and dog droppings.” What exercise does for our bodies, and study does for our minds, we need something for our souls. The book then launches into spiritual disciplines.

I like the idea that I am not called upon, alone, to tend my soul – although the chief responsibility lies with me. Just as I have cyber friends popping in to chase the cyber rabbits out of my cyber garden, I also have friends who join with me in tending my soul. We are all called upon to tend each others souls – to keep, not just an auntie’s eye on the nieces, but speaking a brother’s word of encouragement, and a sister’s gentle reproving into the family that God has birthed us into.