On Hate

Last night's Superbowl left me feeling disappointed and disturbed for many reasons, and this morning I've been mulling those reasons over. I had high hopes for the match-up between the Seahawks and the Broncos. If you know me at all you know I don't like the Broncos at all but they had played well all season and I saw no reason to suspect that they simply wouldn't show up to play in the big game. So that was disappointing. In America we've come to expect awesome, mind-blowing commercials in the Superbowl, and although most of the ones I saw last night left me feeling confused, my mind was definitely intact. We've also come to expect lame half-time shows, and I think Bruno Mars impressed everyone. So it was definitely a night that, in many ways, did not fulfill my expectations. But what upset me the most was the behavior, both online and in person, of many Americans.

We had a small party at our house with good food and good friends, people who I spend a lot of time with, and who I enjoy spending time with. And yet, several times I felt compelled to defend our nation, the entertainment, the teams, and even the commercials in the face of vicious, hateful comments from my friends. I have no doubt that I was guilty of some unfiltered comments as well. The spewing of hate has continued this morning on Facebook and Twitter, and I'm thinking it won't end anytime soon. Last night it was made painfully clear to me that in America we have fostered a culture of hate. Witty, sarcastic comments are applauded as being clever, and it's not a long leap from being sarcastic to being spiteful, and then it's another short hop from spiteful to hateful and just plain mean. I have often participated in it, and now I'm feeling really uncomfortable about it.

Why do we hate people who are different? We live in a large nation with millions of people from diverse countries, cultures, backgrounds, and belief. America's diversity is one of its defining characteristics. It's what makes Americans uniquely Americans. Honestly, it's one of the things I love about this nation. I'm not saying I agree with all of it, but I can appreciate it. I live by a very strong moral code and a worldview that espouses the idea of absolute truth. I disagree with many people about many topics, and yeah, there are people, organizations, political entities, and sports teams that I don't like, but spewing hate and condemnation isn't going to do anyone any good.

I've been thinking a lot about grace lately. I even tried posting about it, but it's such a huge concept that I simply can't boil it down into a few words for a blog post. I am convicted by the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:44, "I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you." I can be so critical of others, but if I'm claiming to follow Jesus, I can't ignore these words. My husband (and pastor) has frequently pointed out the idea from John 3:17 that Jesus did not come to condemn the world, but to save it. We are simply too good at condemning ourselves through our words, our social media rants, and our behavior toward our friends, our enemies, and people we don't even know. We are surrounded by proof that hate, depravity, selfishness, arrogance, and more ugly things dwell at the heart of the human condition. We all fail frequently, publicly, and privately. And yet, God in His grace can and will forgive us and set us free from all of that if we ask Him. It's telling to me that the best picture of grace I saw last night was not from my group of Christian friends but on the show Sherlock (I would elaborate but I despise spoilers). My message to my Christian friends? We need to be more aware of what we're doing, and of the image of Christ that we are displaying to the world. And to my non-Christian friends: I'm sorry. I fail. I'm not perfect, I've never claimed to be, but my God is, and He is the only reason there is any good in me.

I consciously seek to live a life that honors Christ by upholding a certain standard of behavior, but I am aware every day of my need for His intervention in order to be able to live that life. Left to myself, I would be a mean, angry, horrible person. I am often tempted by all sorts of things, and by the power of the Holy Spirit's work in my life I can usually resist those temptations, but I often fail. And if I fail, how can I condemn others for failing, too? It's not right and it's not fair. Can we admit we've been wrong, and let God fix this in us?

"This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness." 1 John 4:5-9

On Hobbits

After my last post on Twitter a few days ago (which, for this blog, was incredibly popular, thanks to my three followers on Twitter who actually read it) you may be trying to imagine how my mind has moved on to Hobbits. Do yourself a favor and stop trying. I actually could explain it, but you would either be bored to tears or contact my husband to encourage him to take me somewhere for a mental evaluation. That would be a waste of time. He knows I’m crazy, but thankfully he prefers my brand of crazy to any other kind.

So, yeah. Hobbits. I’ve actually been contemplating them for a while now. I've been playing LEGO Lord of the Rings on the Xbox 360, and the new Hobbit movie in December prompted me to ask on Facebook: Bilbo or Frodo? The response was pretty much unanimously in favor of Bilbo, with disparaging comments about Frodo to the extent that he is a weak character who perhaps should not have been included in the book at all. I’ve seen several places online where folks argue that Frodo is not the main character of The Lord of the Rings, and even my own husband has voiced his belief that Sam Gamgee is actually the hero of those stories. All of this puzzles me, because up until a few years ago, to my knowledge, Frodo was almost universally beloved. Like all Hobbits who feature prominently in Tolkien’s stories, Frodo is an ordinary little fellow who was thrust unwillingly into an extraordinary series of events. However, Frodo actually did something that no one else did: He saved the world. I hear you critics now: “No, he didn’t! He wanted to keep the Ring at the end! It’s only by accident that … (spoiler removed)” I would just like to point out that Frodo kept faithfully to his purpose through the entire story, and it was only at the last critical moment, when faced with the unrelenting pressure of Sauron’s power expressed through the Ring, that he wavered. It is my opinion that Frodo is the only person in all of Middle-Earth who could have successfully carried the Ring to the fire of Mount Doom without giving in to the temptation to claim it for his own. Which is why the Ring came to him in the first place. Because he was the hero.

Now, on to Bilbo for a moment. Bilbo is a delightful little Hobbit. He’s crafty, creative, can talk his way out of just about any situation, but when talking fails, he’s handy in a fight. When compared to Frodo, it’s not surprising that we tend to like him better. We sympathize with Frodo, we admire Frodo, we applaud Frodo, or perhaps we criticize Frodo, but we like Bilbo. He’d be much more fun to have a conversation with, I think. There’s all this drama that surrounds poor Frodo. All Bilbo had to do was sneak into a dragon’s lair and steal something. Saving the world was not on the agenda for his adventure, so he could come home relatively unscathed. Frodo came home broken. Bilbo’s story is fun. Frodo’s is epic, with all the triumph and tragedy that tends to go along with epic heroes.

So, Bilbo or Frodo? Or for that matter, Sam, Merry or Pippin? I don’t know that I could pick one if I had to. I will just say that I love Hobbits. They are one of the most intriguing little races of people that have ever been introduced into literature, and further proof that Tolkien was an absolute genius.

Feel free to comment with all your anti-Frodo feelings here. He’s not a real person. He won’t be offended.

On Twitter

In my last post on social media, I mentioned that I might write a later post on Facebook. Since then, however, several things keep popping into my mind about Twitter, so I'm posting about that instead.  I have an almost irrational hatred for Facebook, and anything I have to say about it would probably be painful to read, anyway.

I am by no means a Twitter expert. I've had my account for a few years now, but I only have about 120 followers and I follow about ten more than that, and I've tweeted a little over 2,000 times, a pretty moderate number. I participate in a fun writer chat on most Monday nights, so if you happen to be on Twitter at 7:00 MST you may see a bunch of posts with the #WritersRoad hashtag. Other than that, I try to tweet at least once a day and check my feed a couple of times.  Here are some observations:

Twitter is sort of a strange place.  The challenge to express your thoughts in 140 characters or less, including a variety of hashtags that may or may not actually mean anything, is daunting to some people. I love it. I love trying to make myself sound pithy and concise. Others use it for marketing and exposure. I think that's a perfectly good use for Twitter, as long as it isn't your entire purpose for being there. Twitter is by its nature very public.  I don't post about my kids on Twitter for that reason. I do post about writing. At least half of my followers are fellow writers.  I'm also a little more like my usual sarcastic, realistic self, because I don't have to worry about silly things like comments and likes on Facebook.  Very few of my "real" friends follow me on Twitter, and that's ok with me.

Twitter is often used for marketing, with varying levels of success.  I actually saw a tweet this week that said a survey showed that email is still 40 times more effective for marketing than either Facebook or Twitter, and I can appreciate that. I actually started my Twitter account with the intent of using it to promote my Mary Kay business, but I almost never tweet about Mary Kay, and I've never gotten any kind of response when I do.  Personally, I ignore a lot of the blatant marketing I see on Twitter, and some of it just annoys me.

Just in case anyone is wondering, I will unfollow most tweeps for committing two of my three major pet peeves:

1) Sending a Direct Message after I follow with an invitation to check out your website or current promotion. Not a good first impression.
2) Retweeting every Tweet that mentions you (it's kind of, um, narcissistic) or retweeting a whole bunch of people you follow (like 20 or more) several times a day, every day, so that I have to scroll through a bunch of them when I check Twitter. Especially when those retweets are basically ads. Because that's just annoying.
3) Auto-scheduling tweets promoting yourself, your blog, your books, your music, your art...whatever, every few minutes. Especially if you rarely tweet anything else.

The main reasons I like Twitter is because I like seeing what people have to say - briefly - on a variety of topics. I do like the "retweet" button. To me, it's like a nod saying, "I see what you did there. Nice. I'd be happy to pass that on." Although I'm not sure I completely understand the "favorite" button, I like to use it to bookmark Tweets that I want to keep track of and reference later. More like a bookmark than a "like," I suppose. I use Twitter to keep up with news, celebrities, sports figures, writer blogs, and sometimes, just for a good laugh.

So there you go. My thoughts on Twitter, for what they're worth. I suppose I may be completely off base as to why most people are on Twitter, but those are the reasons why I like it, and a few things that bother me about it.

Are you on Twitter? Why or why not? What are your thoughts about it?