The Face I Can't Forget

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Loving My LGBT Neighbour?

I, like everyone else not living under a rock, is aware of the fact that the world is changing in regards to homosexuality. Laws are changing in many countries to allow homosexual couples to marry, decriminalising homosexual lifestyles and basically allowing homosexuals the same rights as their straight counterparts.

However, this isn't the case in other countries. Uganda is one such example. Watch the below video to catch up a little as to what is going on.

This clip is satirical in nature so maybe something a little more serious is in order.

It cannot be denied that to be homosexual in Uganda is somewhat dangerous these days and that this atmosphere of intolerance has been fuelled by extreme views by pastors claiming to be of the Christian persuasion.

So what? I hear you ask. Why do we care? Uganda is all the way over there and we are here and it doesn't affect us. Why don't the homosexuals just go to another country and leave Ugandan's to their ideas?

Well, let me just throw a few things out there for you.

1) This issue has been inflamed by the West stirring things up in Africa. This makes it our problem because it began as our problem.

2) Anything that hurts human rights for any human being should be our business. We are human. We don't like being treated like less human than other people. Therefore we should be really concerned if some people are being treated that way. Just as we now get upset if anyone claims that a black person is less human than a white person (which use to be law just fyi), we should be upset if someone says that a gay person does not deserve the same rights as a straight person. Saying that basically relegates the gay person as less human as the straight person. If you wouldn't like to be treated that way then you should be flipping upset if it is happening to someone else.

3) Why should people be kicked out of their country because they choose to live in a different way with a consenting adult? I am not talking about a crime that is dangerous and hurtful. Homosexuals are not paedophiles or dangerous to anyone. They just want to be treated as a human being who gets to choose their lifestyle. Why should they have to leave for that?

Now I need to state something before I go any further. I am a Christian and I do not agree with the homosexual lifestyle. I don't believe that being Christian and not agreeing with homosexuality goes hand in hand for many people, but for me they are linked. HOWEVER, my gay friends (yes, I do have them) know this and we are able to talk about our opposing views with love and respect. 

My views on homosexuality HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH my views on human rights.

And this is an issue of human rights NOT religion, faith, belief, sexuality or anything like that.

As a Christian, above and beyond everything else, I love God and I love others. 

To love others is to always, no matter the issue, stand with those who are being oppressed. It doesn't matter if they are being oppressed for being a woman, being black, being Muslim, being gay, or being a vegetarian. If someone is being oppressed, if their dignity and worth as a human being is being taken away and/or abused, then it is my duty as a Christian to stand with them, to speak for them, and to fight for them.

What is happening in Uganda to the LBGT community is WRONG. 

It is wrong that people are living in fear because of sexual orientation.

It is wrong that when I watch the above video I am ashamed of the Christians and being associated with them (on another note it is not wrong that I totally proud how Pepe dealt with that awful interview).

It is wrong that when I post pro gay statements on Facebook that I get slammed by Christians who see it as bad that I can support people fighting to be heard as equal human beings.

When Christians speak only about why we stand against homosexuality all we do is paint Christians with the homophobic brush. Everyone is well aware of how we feel about homosexuality by now. I don't think anyone is surprised when a Christian says that they don't agree with that lifestyle. Duh!

But to stand with the LBGT community as they fight for equal rights is something unheard of. It is something that has the potential to bring reconciliation and love between to opposing camps. It has the possibility of showing the love of Christ to those who are all to aware of what we stand against.

So I guess the last reason Uganda should be on our radar is because it is symptomatic of the arguments that are occurring between Christians and LBGT communities. It shows what happens when those conversations become part of law. It shows how hate can be taken to a national scale.

Uganda, if nothing else, should make us pause and think about what our words sound like to those who are LBGT and what impact that may be having on the wider global community.

Gaming Crisis

As many of you know, I have spent the last year working on a thesis about video gaming and Christian ethics (for related posts see here, here, and here). Apart from this meaning that I haven't blogged consistently for a while, it has also lead me to conclusions that I never thought I would reach. I am, in fact, having a GAMING CRISIS.

When I first started out on my thesis, I was pretty sure I knew where I was gonna end up. I am a pacifist by faith and by nature and the violence that I saw on video games haunted me. Watching my hubby and his friends play Black Ops together really use to bother me, even though what they were 'killing' was a) zombies and b) pixels. My first inclination was to run away and hide.

So when I started talking to hubby and friends about their gaming I was pretty sure that it was wrong. I thought it only glorified violence and killing and that didn't sit well with how I understood my faith and the person of Christ. I also just didn't think it was normal for anyone, no matter what faith, to enjoy watching others get killed, pixelated or not.

I was a student who started on research believing I knew what the conclusion would be. Hopefully I am not the only one who has ever done that.

Colour me shocked when I realised about two months ago that I was changing my mind.

Thanks largely to the work of Kevin Schut and his book Of Games and God (if you are into this kind of stuff seriously spend the few dollars to get this book, it is epic and so well written and easy to understand!) I started to delve into the world of Christianity and gaming and the beauty that there is in this art form. Schut, to my delight, didn't gloss over the difficult questions of violence etc, but rather engaged with it in a way that showed deep commitment to his faith and deep consideration of his love of gaming.

In short, his book blew my mind....and changed my thesis.

I began to seriously consider if I was one of those Christians that I had always despised. You know the ones. They are outside stores that are selling GTA with signs telling people how evil gaming is. I never wanted to be one of those people and yet my attitude was such that I was closed off to the idea that gaming could be anything other than violent and disturbing.

Meet my gaming crisis.

It is rather like a faith crisis, when you suddenly realise that everything you ever thought about the Bible was actually taught to you by a broken human being and maybe they didn't have everything right and maybe, just maybe, you know nothing at all about anything. That was my gaming crisis in a nut shell. I realised that I had formed my biased opinions on a small segment of gaming that I had seen and then blindly applied that to everything without stopping to ask if I actually knew what gaming was.

I was adrift in an ocean of gaming uncertainty.

To some extent I am still there. My thesis is not complete. In fact I am due to start writing my concluding chapters next week. Though I am excited about the discoveries I have made, I am also very uncertain that I really know anything about what I am trying to say anymore. All I know is, my conclusion will not be the same as I thought it would be.

I guess that is the nature of true research.

I have even started to game a little. I have started with Skyrim as my first game because of the possibilities that it offers. I am not tied into a particular character, nor do I have to engage in killing if I don't want to. It is perhaps a baby step, but it is something. This has come about due to the fact that Schut argues that you can't engage with a medium if you aren't involved with it. My friend Kent will be face palming right about now as he has been saying this to me for years, and I simply ignored him, so sorry Kent, I guess I couldn't ignore it when it was in print from a scholar of media haha.

So where does this leave me??

I HAVE NO IDEA!!!

Give me another two months to complete this thesis and I will get back to you. 

Just know, this crisis may end with me playing Black Ops after all.

Run Fat Girl, Run!!!!

The other day I had a crisis.

I wanted to go for one of my mega walks but when I went through the clean washing disaster struck.

My sports bra had broken.

Now if you are a woman like me and perhaps weigh a few big macs more than a happy meal, not having a sports bra when exercising is a problem of monumental size (no pun intended!!). I need a sports bra! I MUST HAVE A SPORTS BRA!

So I went shopping (thank you hubby's plastic card) and I was faced with a dilemma that strikes me every time I look for sports gear:

The world does not want big women to exercise.

Oh believe me, the world TELLS big women to exercise. Read any magazine, health website, or watch TV and very soon you will realise that being big is THE sin of today. You want to lose weight, you MUST lose weight, or you will die in your sleep TONIGHT!!!

If the bombardment of messages finally seeps through our fat layers to our simple minded brains (not me saying this, just the impression I get from the ads) then the first thing you MUST do is buy the equipment, work out gear and shoes.

Equipment: check. Shoes: check. Gear:…..

WHERE THE FLIPPIN' DO I BUY GEAR!!???

Sports clothes come in sizes that may cover my forearm and nothing else. If I am to look at sports clothes and deduce anything it is that skinny people love to exercise, while big people don't go near the stuff.

Which may be true, I mean it wasn't through doing exercise that we put on the weight.

But if you are like me and you are sick of being big, then you need the clothes that won't fall apart as you walk down the road. You need support in all the normal places, plus probably a couple more. You need something that will stop chaffing, will allow air flow, and won't show the sweat patches that arrive as soon as you stand up from the couch (oh yeah, I am sexy).

But when you go shopping, you can find none…of….these.

Bike shorts? Forget it. Good tops? No can do. Sports bra? Only if you are the size of a skinny teenager.

Even if you want to buy scales to keep track of your weight, most of the at home ones only go up to 120kg. Now this is a lot but I weigh more and these scales do NOT like being pushed beyond their limits. I should know, I broke my mothers.

So what is one to do? Believe the ads that tell you to move that lazy ass, or to believe the shops that tell you that you don't really want to do anything more than walking around the said shop and then going home for a lie down.

Luckily I eventually found what I was looking for (at 3x the price of the smaller sizes) (if you need to know where I went message me and I will let you know) but the mixed signals and the frustration of feeling like the world wants something for you but won't support you in it was almost enough to put me off.

This new bra better last forever, that's all I am saying.

We Will Remember Them...(a not so ordinary memorial)

Today in NZ it is the 12th of September but in Americaland it is the 11th. September 11. Will that day ever mean anything else except death and fear?

I remember being at school on this day 12 years ago (has it really been that long) and hearing, incorrectly, that America had been bombed. The rest of the day went out the window as we sat in our classes glued to the tv watching repeats of the crashes, then people jumping out of windows to escape the fire. The images are burned into my memory and still make me feel physically ill.

Years on now and my view on this historic event has changed. 

It is still disgusting, barbaric and gut wrenching.

It is still a day that is worth remembering.

But as my understanding of world politics has grown so has my compassion for people that I never thought I would have compassion for.

So today I would like to add my own memorial.

"WE WILL REMEMBER THEM"

Today as we remember the planes crashing into buildings I choose to remember the plane hijackers who chose to kill innocent people. I choose to remember all those who have been subjected to brainwashing and have hurt themselves and others in a deluded attempt to do the right thing. I choose to remember their hate, and I chosoe to forgive it as Christ forgave those who nailed him to a tree and then jeered at him as he died.

As we remember the flames that burned with enough force to melt a building I choose to remember those in every country who have burned in the fires of war and terror. I choose to remember Americans, Afghani's, Iraqians, Iranian, Syrians, Pakistanis, African and South American Nations, and every other people, person, mother, child, father, brother, sister, wife, husband who has instigated or been the victim of war and hatred. I choose to pray for those who kill and those who are killed that the justice of God might be known throughout the world and God's peace may reign over all.

As we remember those that were crushed in buildings that came down on top of them, I choose to remember those that see their way of life destroyed in front of them and have no money to rebuild. I choose to remember those that are poor and helpless and do not have an economy or a government that will help them with medical costs and welfare. I choose to remember the parents who watch their children starve because they have been forgotten by the people with money and power. I pray that they may know that God is with them in their suffering, that Jesus suffered as they suffered, that he had no home or income and that he loves them and will wipe their tears from their eyes.

As we remember the nationalism that swept America after the fateful events of September 11 I choose to remember those that are in nations that use nationalism to wage wars and incite the people to hatred. I choose to remember the conditions and environments that breed young people and teach them to hate those from other countries and different religions. I remember those that have never heard of the gospel of peace and instead chose revenge and murder. I pray that God will forgive them, and that they will learn to turn from what they do.

I will remember them.

All of them.

The Death of YOLO

For those of you who are older than 30, YOLO is the new expression for justifying pretty much any behaviour that lets you live for the moment. The reasoning goes “you only live once so go out and have fun”.

This video clip from a girl called Kesha that really exemplifies this life style.

We see here the belief that to live in the moment is to get drunk, have sex, cheat on our partners, party wildly, vandalism throw away responsibility. This song tells us that if we are going to die young then we may as well live it up as best we can now by not feeling any shame or guilt for the way we act. Rebellion against the established order is also shown through anti-Christian symbols. Did any one spot the pentagram, sign of witch craft, and the upside down cross?

There is another way to view YOLO though, and this video clip that shows this understanding....

Ok so this is obviously meant to be poking fun but it really does have an interesting view point. The idea of YOLO, you only live once, leads to a fear of death. In fact both clips show this.

The second clip shows it in an extreme way, telling us that we really need to lock ourselves away in order to live a careful life and preserve it at all costs. The first clip doesn't seem to be showing fear of death, but think about it this way. It is only fear of not living long enough to fulfill all our dreams, or have enough fun, that fuels a lifestyle like this. It is the fear of missing out, or FOMO, that comes from the fear that if this life is it then we really have to milk it for all its worth.

So what do we do with this? What is the alternative to partying it up or hiding ourselves away?

Surprise, surprise, but the Bible actually has A LOT to say about YOLO!!! Who would've thought it! Here we are 2000ish years after this book has been written and it can speak directly into a situation that they had never even heard of!

HEBREWS 12:1-4 (MESSAGE version)

 Do you see what this means - all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running - and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. 2 Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed - that exhilarating finish in and with God - he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he's there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. 3 When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! 4 In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through - all that bloodshed!

Ok, so it doesn't mention YOLO or even FOMO or anything like that.

It might not mention those directly but look at what it is saying. It is telling us that somehow other people know what we are facing, that Jesus knows what we are facing!

But before I go into it too much I want to give you a little context. Before this particular passage the author has just had a huge talk about all these other dudes who show up in the Bible. They talk about what they got up to and how they trusted in God. They pretty much sum up the Bible story in terms of individuals and their walks with God. So at the beginning when they say “all these veterans” what they are talking about are people who have gone before us who had to put their faith in God too, even when it got tough.

This author knows what it is like to live a hard life when being a Christian. Christians weren't exactly the favourite people in those days. In fact they were pretty hated. They were abused and laughed at and seen as kind of weird for living differently to the rest of society.

I don't know about you but that sounds awfully similar to what it is like to be a Christian now who says no to going to parties or having sex before marriage and all that stuff. People think we are strange. They think we are party-poopers, kill joys, fun sponges. Anyone else find that sometimes?

This author doesn't tell us that, actually, we should try really hard to fit in because it is better if you live in such a way that people don't know your a Christian. They don't tell us that they understand how hard it is and really it is understandable that we give in every now and then because we want to have a bit of fun and don't want to miss out.

Nope. Look at what they do say.

They tell us to start running and never quit!

 I am trying to loose weight at the moment and I tell ya, going to the gym every day is NOT my favourite thing to do.

Anyone who has had to train in anything knows that it is hard. It is brutal. Making yourself get up every day and do the same thing, to knowingly have to push yourself through pain, is sometimes just the opposite of what you want to do. Some days there is a pay off and you feel good afterwards, and some days you just feel more tired and exhausted and you just want to give up and never do it again. 

Usually at those times you will have a goal that you want to achieve that pushes you to keep going. Maybe it is a gold medal, or in my case a weight I want to achieve. Whatever it is, in your mind you keep your eye on the prize because there are days when that is the only reason you have to push through.

This author is using that analogy. They are saying that life isn't about wild living that ignores the pain in the world. It isn't about instant gratification that makes us feel good. Nor is it about quitting, running away and hiding from everything. Instead it is race.

We start the race when we accept Jesus into our lives, when we go “yeah, Jesus, I want you to be the head of my life because really, I have done a crap job up until now”. That day when we ask him to lead, that is the day we start running.

And we keep going. Everyday. We study how Jesus lived his life so we can train in the same way. We look at the love he had for others and the complete submission he had to the Father and we practice that in our own lives. We look at the pain he went through, the suffering, and we know that we can face anything with God beside and inside us. We read the stories of other people who have gone before us. We see that at times they fail, but they do not give up, and it is those stories that give us strength to keep going.

And above all we see that for Jesus the race didn't end in death. We don't run this race for nothing. Our prize at the end is that we don't only live once. We live again, in an eternity of God's rest. We will see this world renewed without the pain and the heartache, and we will finally get to see the man that we were running for. We will get to see Jesus.

 But there is the question of how do we train for life? It seems like a rather strange thing to ask us to do really when we have no idea what life will bring. How do you prepare for something that you can predict?

There are 3 easy steps that I think can help us all train in Christ for whatever may happen in life.

1. Read your Bible's. Now I know this seems like such the obvious Christian thing to say right now. But I am talking about more than just picking up the book and saying “Jesus speak to me today” and then hoping that we get it right in what we read. No. I mean study it. Get books out on how to interpret the verses. Get a good daily reading plan that helps explain the verses. Talk to people who have studied it. This church is full of leaders who have study the Bible. Use them, utilize their knowledge. Because the Bible doesn't start “Dear Christine” and end “Love from God”. Not everything is clear and we may get it really wrong. But we need to train our minds with Scripture if we are to know what it says.

And this leads to my second step:

2. Once we actually know what the Bible is saying to us we need to obey it. There is no point doing all that hard work of reading the thing if we are going to ignore it. Once we have trained our minds we need to train our actions. This becomes easier as you fill your minds with good stuff. Our conscience becomes more clear when we are doing things that might not be good. We start to analyse tv programmes, video clips and books better because we do it through the lens of the Bible. We start living more like Christ and loving God and people. And the more the do this the easier it becomes to
   
   
   
   
   
3. Persevere. This last step is about training no matter what. About studying the Bible, analysing our thoughts and feelings and actions through it, no matter what happens, no matter what life throws at us. Because there will be times when it is harder to do than others, and it is only training in 1) and 2) that will help you with 3).
   
   
   

Now I know that this doesn't sound fun. Things like study, training, perseverance, obedience aren't exactly words that make us jump up and yell “sign me up. I so want a piece of that!”

I'm not gonna lie to you and tell you that life with Jesus is sunshine and roses. In fact life may get harder for you as you live in the world but as someone who lives differently to it. There are times when you will want to throw it all away and party and forget the hardship of life. Trust me, we have all been there. Talk to anyone who has been a Christian for a while and they will tell you that they have moments where doubts creep in, where temptation is strong, when they wish they could just walk away.

But here is the amazing thing.

You don't do it alone.

You aren't a marathon runner who is out there pounding the streets alone. You have a great cloud of witnesses, past and present, who have gone before you and who cheer you on. They help you with their writings and sermons, the things that they have learned. And you have Christ, who has showed us the way and modeled how to do it.

See we run for Christ, to Christ, with Christ, and through the strength of Christ. We run to be like Christ, so we train under Christ, because we stand firm on our foundation which is Christ. And as we keep running, it is the story of Christ that renews our strength and faith when we feel it failing.

We are coming up to Easter now, a time when we remember that Christ died and rose again. We remember why we are running the race in the first place. We remember that we follow a God who not only went into the grave, but came back out of it, and promised us the same.

We remember that we don't only live once. Don't live waiting to die. Don't live as Kesha would tell you to live, so scared that you will die before you do anything fun that you go wild. Don't live as Lonely Island tells you to live, so scared of something going wrong that you barracade yourself away from the world. Both of these types of people are living waiting for death. Death is what shapes and forms their lives. In trying to hide from it, in reality it is ruling them.

Christ on the other hand brings life and life in full. He frees us from sin. What that means is we don't have to live afraid of death because we have no hope in anything after it. It means that he gives us strength to say no to things that are bad for us. It means that we don't carry around guilt or shame for things that we have done. It means having the weight of the world, of fear, of shame, taken off our shoulders because he already carried it.

The Christian churchy way of saying all this is that we die to ourselves. It's a kind of hard concept to grasp, I mean how do we actually do that. It is easier if I give you some examples than to try and explain it in words.

Dying to self is when a young 17 year old man fails in a suicide attempt that he tried because his life was meaningless. When he came through it he said to God that his own attempts to fix his life had failed so now he was going to give God a chance to sort it out. Since then he has let God direct his path, has fallen in love with Scripture, and has a meaning and purpose that he never had before. He died to himself by giving up his own wish to die, by letting God take control. He gave up what he wanted and listened to what God wanted instead.

Dying to self is the 16 year old girl who had a moment of passion with her boyfriend and ended up pregnant. She went to church and was a sunday school leader but had fallen into temptation that changed her life. She wanted to get an abortion but on the way to the clinic changed her mind. She pulled the car over and prayed that God would give her strength to raise a baby even though she was a child herself. She died to self in that she gave up her own fear to God, her desire to remain young and carefree, and the shame that she would feel in facing her peers. She raised that child to follow God and thanks Jesus everyday that he is in control and that he gave her strength to keep her baby.

Dying to self is the 20 year old who looks at porn everyday. He knows others do too but it is destroying him inside. He feels so ashamed and dirty every time he goes to the websites but the temptation seems too strong and he feels he can't stop. He has tried praying and reading his bible but he fails over and over as the desire takes hold. In desperation he asks God to help him overcome his shame and he reaches out to a friend for help. He died to himself in that he gave it to God, he gave up his desires and his fear of rejection and, with the strength of God asked others for help. He still fails, it is still a struggle, but he gives it over to God every time and dies to himself everyday.

See, if you really believe in Christ then it is time to start living it. Because if we don't live out what we believe then the grace we have been given we are throwing in God's face. We are saying that Jesus' death wasn't important enough for you to give up drinking, drugs, sleeping around, downloading music illegally, watching porn...whatever it is. You are saying that your happiness in that moment is sooooo important, that it is more important than what Jesus did for you. You are saying that your sin is more powerful that his love. That you would rather be a slave to culture than free in Christ.

It is time for the death of YOLO. Stop living as if you are waiting to die. Die to yourself, your own selfish desires and sin, so that you may live in Christ, that you might live forever.

Watch this clip!!

Act of Murder

I just walked out of a movie.

I don't do this often, as I usually am interested in what a movie has to say, even if I don't agree with it.

The one I walked out of however made me so angry that I couldn't stand to watch it anymore.

The movie is called "Act of Valor" and is about real life situations that the Navy Seals have found themselves in. Though I respect the fact that the Seals are the elite of the elite and they have fine tuned their craft until it is an artwork, the fact that their artwork is that of death is something that I find hard to swallow.

In the movie one of the situations is an extraction of a CIA agent that has been captured and is being tortured. The agent is a young woman and will no doubt be tortured until death. The Seals have to infiltrate and extract the woman.

They efficiently get the woman out but in doing so kill many of the workers on the other side. Do I agree with the fact that they were torturing a woman? No at all! But do I think that somehow the Seals are justified in killing people for one of their own people? No!

I find war, or violence between countries, the height of hypocrisy. We tell someone that they are not right in hurting our people so we spy on them. They say we have no right to spy on them so they capture the spy. We say they have no right to capture our spy so we kill untold numbers of their people to get our spy back. They retaliate to the killing of their people...and so it goes on.

Martin Luther King Jnr said once that you cannot murder murder, you cannot stop violence with violence. Darkness cannot put out darkness, only light can do that. 

Too often the ideas of 'an eye for an eye' are taken to the extreme on a world stage to the point where even Christians think that it is noble and right to fight and kill others for the sake of the ones they love and protect?

What about the family of the person you are killing? What about the fear/anger/passion they are fighting with/for? How can you justify their death if it means saving your own?

Jesus taught us to forgive our enemies. If we take that from not just in our own lives but to a global stage, then forgiveness and love cannot lead to violence! They cannot co-exist! How can you shoot someone whom you love and whom you have forgiven? Even if it means the death of those you love? Even if it means your own life?

No one life is better than another, even if that life has been used to hurt and manipulate and destroy. Even if that person's actions are evil, who are we to judge whether or not they should die? Is that not for God to decide? Is it not good enough to live out of Jesus' words to love and to forgive?

As I watched the movie I was struck by the amount of money and effort that is put into making machines that sole purpose is to seek and kill people. It made me think about how that money could be used to support countries where most terrorists are made. If there was nutrition, schooling, safety then maybe less children would grow up with so much hate that they needed to kill. Maybe their parents would teach them to hate others but to love those that helped them.

I see no justification for money and people to be used to kill others. I see no justification for war of any kind. I see no correlation between the story of the Bible and violence. I would give my life to stop others being hurt, but I would never take another's or kid myself that by doing so somehow I would achieve peace through violence.

Let the People Speak!

Facebook. Love it or hate it, it is here to stay.

And it is changing our lives!

It is changing the way that we think about ourselves, our world and each other.

Before facebook when did you ever think that anyone wanted to know, or een cared, about the amazing meal you had last night, how sick you were feeling, or the new shoes you just got?

When did you consider that hundreds of people that you mostly know only slightly needed to know about your relationship and where it was headed?

We didn't. We told our few close friends and got on with our lives.

Now, if it isn't on facebook then it is almost not official.

EVERYONE wants to know, or at least we think they do, and so we must broadcast our lives, even the mundane and stupid bits.

It is also revolutionising the amount of say that people believe they have in public issues. I have been 'invited' to numerous rallies, projects, protests and petitions all calling for public change and awareness. People are more aware of their environment now and what is happening out there and we want a say! Just as we have a say on everything else through the wonderful world of the 'wall', so too do we now want to express our opinion on other stuff; important stuff!

Theological debates are also entered into by people who would never necessarily shared their faith publically before. People express their disgust or love of religion, they debate with people about their views, and everyone generally tries to evangelise the world with their 'right' thinking.

I confess, I do all of the above, the good and the bad, and though there are many stupid things on fb there are also many great things.

For example, I have been engaged in a conversation (or series of) with a young man who has given up his faith in order to 'think rationally' (his argument not mine). Of course, being me, I just had to, had to, put in my two cents (two dollars, two hundred dollars...) in. At times it has been heated, at others quite funny, and always very deep and searching.

I have loved this. I think anyone who is using their brain and searching for truth is on to something good. But what I have been more blown away with is the response of others.

I have been messaged by people I don't know saying that they are praying for our mutual friend. I have had others, again I don't know, message me to encourage or berate me for my stance. I have had people back up my statements, 'like' them, and challenge me. It is truly a communal disscusion that is occurring that is having an impact on many people around us.

People can't remain quiet in the face of something they believe in being challenged. It is a deeply ingrained part of us that requires us to speak out, yell, scream, or (in the examples seen in this blog) paint.

These pics are from street artists around the world who are commenting on what they see around them in the only way they know how; by painting it on walls.

They are creating a renewable, contemporary commentary of their culture and environment. Like fb they are writing up on a 'wall' what is occurring around them because they cannot be silent. Their humanness cries out to be heard over the devastation and pain that they witness. Like my friend they are writing up in public view what they believe and what they question.

For the same reason that I write this blog, my friend debates faith on fb and these painters put up pictures around their cities, asking the general population to engage in the issue, to think deeply and to reflect on their lives. Their art does what an fb 'invite' does for us.

This world is so messed up. Our relationships with each other and with creation are so out of whack that many of us are lonely while living in cities. Though technology has it's flaws, there are times when I can celebrate what occurs due to our ability to connect with others anywhere, anytime.

There is hope for us yet.