I found myself experiencing a lot of emotions: a feeling like guilt--but not exactly guilt in that it didn't seem hopeless but rather hopeful, as if I were recognizing a very deep personal weakness but also the way out of it. Christians often refer to this feeling as the conviction of the Holy Spirit ( conviction needn't be an emotional affair, even though it often is.) I also felt sadness over the suffering of the world that was unjustly thrust upon Jesus. Joy in the midst of sadness over my own suffering and the suffering of people close to me, the joy that comes from knowing a compassionate Savior who is willing and able to make all things right in their right time.
Anyway, it was emotional.
I think it was emotional because God was at work. I could be wrong, but that's my interpretation of the events. I had a strong sense of the Spirit's presence.* God was at work on my heart showing me my sin, His grace, my desperate need for a Savior, the sufficiency of His providence and all that stuff. Here's the disturbing part: while this is happening, I'm trying to think of how to put this deeply spiritual experience into words--particularly a sentence or so of words...that would fit in my facebook status.
What is wrong with me?
Here I am, supposedly drawing near to the cross-- the event that is the culmination of Jesus' life and ministry, the event that changed human history and the cosmic order--I'm drawing close to God and God is revealing Himself to me, it is a holy, numinous, and transcendental moment and I'm thinking "How can I sum this up so that I can tell everyone on facebook about it?"
Now, I've come to accept certain personality traits about myself that I consider morally neutral. While I do not believe the term "extrovert" is exhaustive in describing my identity, it is certainly functionally descriptive of a tendency towards meeting strangers and enjoying large groups. That tendency whether innate or learned has quite a bit of inertia to it and probably isn't going to change without some drastic psychological arm-twisting--which would probably feel like torture to me. I want almost everything I do to be shared with others. Especially when it comes to the core message about Jesus--this is really good news to me, I think it's awesome and I think knowing about it, thinking about it, and experiencing God through that core message--what Christians have called "the Gospel"--that is something I want to talk about with everyone. Of course, not everyone shares my enthusiasm, especially living in Springfield where a lot of people have a lot of enthusiasm about this "Gospel" thing, to the point that if you don't really know what people are talking about when they say "Gospel" or if you do know and you just don't think that it's true, or that it can be "proven" true, or maybe even you think it's probably true but you'd rather ignore it because of it's painful implications for personal life, if you fit into any of those categories in Springfield then you may begin to feel marginalized or pressured to accept something you can't wrap your mind or gut around--which violates a sense of identity and choice. It feels disrespectful when people try to shove their religion down our throats. And we Christians aren't always willing to take "no" for an answer even when it will probably be the answer for a long time, unless something significant takes place to cause a change to that answer. This puts someone like me in an awkward position. I've sincerely experienced something life-changing and good in the person of Jesus, but I don't want my friends who aren't sharing that experience to feel that our friendship is only a means for me to preach to them, because it's not. Those friendships may very well be an opportunity to openly discuss that (I think) Great News, but if all of my friends who were republicans were only friends with me because they wanted me to become an out-spoken republican, that would put a damper on the relationship. (Not that republican=Christian, it most certainly does not.)
Anyway, I digress. My point is I'm an extrovert and Evangelical, so maybe that explains it. But what I think what I'm trying to get at here is that maybe there are some experiences--even experiences that come about from the very public work of Jesus on the cross, that aren't meant to be shared or broadcast-ed through social networking media. Is the reason I want to sum up this deep spiritual experience on Good Friday so that I can share the Good News, or is it that I want people to think of me as a deeply spiritual person? What do I think that adding something like that to the textual noise of a few people's News Feeds will actually accomplish? Is it really sharing the Gospel or am I just broadcasting my opinion for my own sense of worth as a "good" Christian?
Could it be that some things are just too holy for our facebook statuses?
*(The language and therefore the theology of the God who created the space-time universe gets a little fuzzy when we talk about the manifest "presence" or "glory" of God. The only thing that I can figure out is that it's not that God "isn't" somewhere, because he is omnipresent, but that a lot of the time I walk around with the ridiculous idea that He isn't near, and when I experience His Presence, it's not as though God were somewhere far away and is suddenly coming over for a chat, it's just I am actually waking up to Reality, the real reality where God exists, the reality where He is present, instead of my distracted stupor that I spend way too much time in. Of course to talk about things in this way seems to imply that I am achieving enlightenment or something stupid like that by my own insight, so I prefer to talk in terms of experiencing God because I believe God is really the one at work making me aware of His Presence and power, which are always near and always true.)
So I can say nothing in regards to Twitter as I don't use it and don't really *get* it. However, I would like to say something about Facebook... I humbly submit that Facebook is not about being an advertisement of self but rather an extension of relationship(s). Perhaps not so much for people who friend those they don't know or celebrities, but all of the people who are on my Facebook are people who I am interested in... who I am in fact "watching, listening, and caring" about. If they aren't/weren't I would remove them from my friend list. Do I "un-tag" myself in pictures that I don't like? Absolutely. Would I show pictures of myself that I think are unflattering in "real life" to friends? Heck no! It's the same thing. People actually have *more* of an opportunity to see pictures of me that I don't like on Facebook, because I can't delete a friend's photo (and while I wouldn't rip up a physical photo of a friend's how often do we really look at other's "real" photos?) There are pictures of me on Facebook that are there not because I thought "Oooh yes, I will put up this picture of me so that others will think that I am random and quirky" but because I actually am rather random and quirky and I was doing those things and a picture got taken. Facebook allows me to see others more clearly, to keep in touch with people who I would otherwise lose track of, and to strengthen relationships from acquaintance to friend. I admit that I sometimes cringe at controversial status updates, but because of Facebook I'm not insulting the person who posted and really believes in that status through my facial expressions or body language. If I disagree that vehemently Facebook allows me an avenue to calmly and rationally make my points and know that I'm being heard out, rather than being talked over as so often happens in "real" life debates. It also allows me to edit myself so I don't say something I don't actually believe. You may notice that I keep putting "real" in quotation marks as I make this post. I'm using it to differentiate the physical outside world to the internet, and "real" is (at least to me) common parlance. The reason why I use the quotes, though is this: Facebook/the internet is still the real world. These aren't random people who are out there in the ether. They are people that you know, or have known. It actually causes me to be less self-centered, because I can read about how this person is enjoying life, or this person is pregnant, or this person is dealing with the death of someone close to them, and none of these things are facts that I would necessarily know without Facebook. There are people in my life who are dealing with things *just* as hard as having a husband recovering from a bone marrow transplant in a different city than me. There are people in my life going through things that are harder than that, and I would never know, because of my limited schedule. Are there things too holy for our Facebook statuses? Well, I think there are things that shouldn't be boiled down to a sentence or two that could fit in a status. But that's why there are "Notes."
ReplyDeleteOr blogs. :) Good points Renee.
ReplyDeleteYeah... Renee has good points, though I've done (and will surely continue to do) my share of railing against facebook and cell phones, all while using both. I admit that it's too easy to shoot the messenger/medium, rather than people's uses of them. But, to set up a straw man, even though guns don't kill people, people do, it's a lot easier to kill somebody with a gun than with a stick. I think the peril of technology, which is made worse by how increasingly surrounded by it and its every-increasing coolness we are, is that we're constantly tempted to equate more/faster with better. Food, information, news, entertainment, friends. We're able to follow and skim (and consume) more, but our perceptions of how much we need, how often we need it, and how much effort it's worth expending to get it change. With facebook, the convenience of it all can give the illusion of knowledge and relationship just as much as it can allow actual forming or deepening of relationship. It's hard not to get overwhelmed by the information or to feel like we're keeping up with people who we haven't talked to or spent any time with or been there for in a non-digital way, in years. That feels good, and it can be valuable sometimes, but I'm not too sure that it pushes me towards anything good, or that it ultimately wouldn't be time better spent elsewhere.
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