The Problem With Winkeyman

We've come a long way. Every once in a while I sit back and marvel at the amazing things that society has put around us. When it comes to communication aids, I am completely blown away! When I turned 16 I thought it was pretty sweet that I could just buzz across town and see what my friends were up to. Then, even if they didn't answer their home phone, I could still track them down. Well, I know I didn't grow up in the stone age and occasionally we sent emails, but now if I need to get a hold of someone, a lot of times I can call 2 or 3 different phones, chat with them on Facebook, AIM, Gmail chat, MSN, Yahoo!, iChat, or wherever, I can post a message on their profile or their blog, I can text them, or (if there's time)I suppose I can still write them a letter.

Now this is all great...I use most of those things I just mentioned to get in touch with people. I run in to a couple problems, though. First of all, it is really hard sometimes to get the tone of what you're saying across in a quick email, text, or instant message. The other day I was chatting with my sister and realized that she would have no way of knowing that the little jab I just made was all in fun. Insert winkeyman. ;) That was close. But was that the playful winkeyman or the sarcastic winkeyman or the "I'm being honest but just need to soften the blow" winkeyman? Aaaarrrgh!

the second thing is that when I'm with people now, sometimes I find myself looking at them, looking away, jotting a note in my palm pilot (which should really be upgraded to an iPhone so it can be a phone too and check email and stay connected), looking at what's going on across the street, giving the token understanding nod, looking back at the person who's talking, sometimes creating my own inner dialogue. Whoo. Sometimes I feel like I just got done watching ESPN while I have MSN in the picture in picture on the plasma screen attached to my dashboard as I talk on my cell phone and listen to an audio book from iTunes while I'm driving. Maybe this opens too big a can of worms for this blog anyway.

In the end, I think I just get frustrated because there is so much out there to help me communicate with other people and yet, the communication isn't better. Now, there are all sorts of "yeah but"s to this, especially in the realm of business and research, but for me--the simple have a conversation with my friends guy, I find myself wishing sometimes that I could just


TURN IT OFF.


I'll turn it back on in just a second, but maybe I'll use iChat because I'm learning that Winkeyman and I don't have the same facial expressions.

Pondering the Righteous Response To Being Burgled

Today I walked into the church and opened the door to my office (the youth room) and after first look, pulled a double take as I realized that one of the many windows had been broken. I soon found that several items had been stolen. Happy Friday!

Now this isn't the first time that this has happened to St. John. It has happened several times. We keep taking other security measures, but I'm not really all about locking down a church because of some stuff we keep there. Call me crazy, but that's not really how we want the church to feel...

So what now? I've been playing CSI for hours now, called the fuzz (this time they actually brought someone to look for evidence, which has not been the case before) and they gathered information and evidence and I'm in the process of getting the window fixed and am frustrated about the work in progress I had on my laptop that I should have just saved to our server and all of the things that I have to do in the next few weeks and probably won't have time to put my best energy into and then I start wondering why I'm writing a blog at all...

And I just took a call from a telemarketer about discounts on replacing windows...amazing. I should have asked where she was on the evening of June 5th. Okay, all the details aside and in spite of my frustration and feelings of being violated and wondering why each time someone breaks in at church they tend to steal stuff that I use...I'm trying to figure out how I should feel. You know, the WWJD mentality--heretical as it may be. Part of me wants to track the dude down and go on a rampage--you know, that righteous wrath we see in the OT. But then there's that 70x7 stuff and the "golden rule" and judge not lest you be judged and the plank in the eye and the forgive us out trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us stuff...eesh! As I sit here and type on a piece of luxury that could have bought a lot of food for someone who didn't have any, while I use wireless internet that I'm not paying for, while I dwell on how someone attacked my comfort, while I harbor all sorts of things in my heart...

Maybe I just need to let go and move on.

How can I live that full and amazing life without letting go? Forgiveness is pretty powerful that way--both for the forgiver and the forgiven. So that sounds good, I'll do that. But what if they actually caught the perp? What would I say? Don't press charges, we forgive him? Let's break a couple windows on his house? Put him in the stocks? My heart still needs some work.