This week two friends of mine from high school who are married now visited Carie and I for a few days here in Massachusetts. Which leads me to a question. I would still be in touch with these friends if it were not for Facebook and Myspace, but I’m connecting to a lot of other friends on these and other web 2.0 experiences from my past. It’s a complicate one. Here goes:
Sometime in 2005 I took a test to find out what my strengths were. I found that my top 5 were as follows: 1. Ideator, 2. Positivity, 3. Connectedness, 4. Competition, 5. Developer
I noticed as several of my friends took the same test that several of us had one of those in common. Out of the 7 people I know that took the test, 5 of them had connectedness as a strength.
Some qualitites of someone with this strength – “That I gain confidence from knowing that we are not isolated from one another or from the earth and the life on it; I am part of a larger picture, and I must not harm others because I will harm myself; and I am a bridge builder between people of different cultures.”
Enter the beauty of web 2.0 to people like me.
I’m not a fan of compartmentalizing my life. I like things, whether it’s people in my life or web sites I go to, to all be connected to one another. This makes my mom and google both very happy.
How does this affect me?
I like it when my family and my friends and all the people in my life meet. What makes this interesting is when they don’t get along. I think everyone should get along. Not like each other, just get along.
I like using google and itunes. My friend Clay swears against itunes, and probably rightfully so, but I like when things connect together easily, so I use it. I know, I know Clay, I sacrifice things to use itunes. Google connects a lot of things in my web life, like my Calendar, my way to find where I might be going, my blog reader, my connect with Fellowship Church podcasts, and even my weather, not to mention my documents (I don’t have to pay for Microsoft office again!)
Weather
I think that there is a terrific connection between Don Miller’s “Blue like Jazz”, Vince Antonucci’s
“I became a Christian and all I got was this lousy T-shirt“, and Gregg Easterbrook’s “The
Progress Paradox”
Is it good or bad that everytime I consider the way that the web 2.0 works, I ponder the anti-christ and how he is eventually going to find me because of my belief system, and the web has become is tool to do this?
This is obviously because of the way I have been taught about what the Bible says about the end times, but no matter how hard I try to ignore this, it always comes to my mind. I’ve gone through these phases where, at first, I knew the web was a part of the whole wretched plan of satan to destroy the Kingdom of God.
Next, I realized I was a bit misguided and decided that the web could be used for good too. But eventually, it would catch up to us and I would some day be sifted out like tares and wheat for my beliefs, but who cares, now is now, and I could worry about that some other day. (I would of course, be a part of the wheat)
Now I just don’t care what goes out about me and who knows about it. And if some middle east dude decides to link up Israel and the Arab nations and create a massive country that combines the United States and Europe, so be it. This does not change what I’m called to do and who I’m called to serve. I would just assume love my God and my community, and share my adventures around the world. If somebody doesn’t like love, then he or she can “sit on a tack.”
But until then, because of my background, I’ll always keep in my mind the teachings that started in the 1800′s that imply the anti-christ is out to get me whenever I post anything on this darned blog.
Let’s all sing together: “There’s no time to change your mind, the Son has come and you’ve been left behind.”
