Are You A Facebook Friend?

I admit that I was late joining the Facebook craze. I really didn’t see the point of hanging out online posting what I ate for breakfast, or the latest news from family, work and parish. The people I knew who did that seemed to be addicted, checking their pages all day long, commenting on everything, seemingly outdoing each other in number of posts per day. I wondered who had time for all of that. Why not just send a group email once, or better yet, just pick up the phone?

And then I stopped receiving letters with cute photos of pets and babies enclosed. I asked time and again for a photo, only to be told I’d have to go to Facebook to see them. So I finally gave in and got a page. And all was well for quite a while, until I heard the siren call and was lured onto the figurative rocks.

Now if I had just stuck with the legitimate uses, such as keeping up with the professional guilds to which I belong, stores I like, linking to news articles I want to share, and of course family news from friends, I would have been fine. Instead, I found myself lured into a whole lot of unnecessary drama, as I found I now had to answer multiple messenger messages, no matter what else I was doing - like working!, RIGHT NOW to avoid offending the sender.   And instead of helpful, uplifting news and photos, I found myself in the middle of the political firestorm.

I’m blessed to have friends on both sides of the political spectrum. I find hearing both points of view keeps me from being too narrow minded. I don’t mind when my friends and associates post political news and editorials, even if I don’t agree with the viewpoint. I just wish people would keep things civil. No name-calling, stereotyping, excoriating the other side as unredeemably evil and the cause of the Downfall of Life as We Knew It, as though it didn’t take all of us to Destroy Life as We Knew It.

Even worse, people I knew to be devoted Catholics began posting “cute” sayings with decidedly unchristian messages. Things like “the only thing wrong with helping some people is that they will ask for help again” as though Christians are not called to serve our brothers and sisters all the time, no matter what. The issue here might be what kind of help actually helps, but that wasn’t stated. This was followed up by “some people just need to be shot-too bad it’s illegal” as though murder isn’t murder if you don’t like the person. That person so dismissed is also a child of God, and every bit as precious in His sight as we are, so why are we threatening to murder our brother or sister?

I really wish that we, as Catholics, stopped and thought about the effects of our “harmless jokes” on our own souls, and the souls of others. We are called to be in the world, but not of the world, so why would any of us find any humor in statements like these? I doubt the Catholics who posted those “jokes” would actually condone murder, or refuse to help someone when asked, but that’s not what their posts said.

So, if you’d like to be my Facebook friend, I welcome you. Please send me photos of your children and your pets, and links to your favorite causes and places. You can have different political views than I do. I promise I will not be offended. All I ask is that you remember who we are as children of God when you post.

On second thought, just call me.