THE DARK OF THE YEAR

(I wrote this on Christmas Day, but due to computer problems, haven't been able to post it until now.)

The shortest day of the year. The winter solstice. Year's end. Oh, yeah, and Christmas.

Some non-believers occasionally sneer at Christmas by arguing that the early Church just wanted to co-opt and supplant the Roman festival of Saturnalia. They point out that the actual birthdate of Jesus cannot be known - as if that somehow negates the fact that he was born at some point. It is the significance of his birth that (in absence of knowledge of the actual date) led to the selection of the traditional placement.

Christ is the light of the world. He came to give us hope in the midst of dispair, to give us life in the midst of death. So why not celebrate his coming when the year reaches its darkest point? (With the self-centeredness of the Northern Hemisphere, of course.)

I've been thinking about these points this last week because this month has been challenging for me. Mainly due to computer problems. My laptop crashed - twice (due to clueless me overworking the motherboard by using a 3-D animation program the machine couldn't handle). This produced a bit of panic for me, because I hadn't externally backed up any of my works or pictures.

Suddenly, I was forced with the posibility of losing all the projects I had in hand. Some of them had some external back up: one novel's first draft is in long-hand, another still has existence on my older computer, another couple of projects have been emailed to others and so back up exists in webmail copies. The sudden prospect of losing everything else ripped off a cover of nonchalance I have had about my writing. These works really do matter to me.

I suddenly felt as if my chldren were in danger of being lost. That was startling enough. What startled me even more was that my mind immediately thought that this is how God regards us. We are His creations, His children, and He loves us very much indeed. He wants to see us reach our "completion," our fullest incarnation.

I certainly did not expect a theological insight to arise from a personal challenge.

I had been trying to figure out how to recapture the dedication and focus I had when working on The Scribbler's Guide to the Land of Myth. The possibility of losing all of the newer works got me over that threshold. I do love my work, and I do want to finish them so that I can set them out to meet their audiences. I did not want to lose them.

The hope in the season of Christmas did not desert me. My files were not lost (and I certainly backed up everything once the machine was home). And I regained the true heart for my works. I had regained by deepest love of the act of writing some months ago. But now I have also regained my love for the works themselves. And that this personal revelation came to me in the celebration of Christmas gives me great joy.

"SOUND BYTES" BITE

I've noticed something in the last couple of years that has disturbed me a bit. It has to deal with the new social networking sites, and how people communicate on such sites. It is very easy for a person to post a comment or observation on a stie like Facebook, and in the insuing responses have people clash most unpleasantly, to the pint of participants "unfriending" each other and dismissing the "offender" for their consideration forever more.

The problem for me is that no one's comment post on Facebook can actually reflect that person's full opinion or understanding of something. Not even message boards with their greater allotment of "space" for comment can do justice to a person's opinions. The nature of online interaction is so frquently transitory and immediate. It is also frequently flippant and "reactive" in the sense that it would probably not be a considered opinion.

Why are people so ready to just stop at the comment post level? And why are they so willing to throw away all contact with someone on the basis of these little "sound-bites"? Why drop "socializing" with someone without even bothering to communicate by email why you are falling out with your (former) friend? I recently watched one friend drop another as a freind on the basis of some flippant remarks on a message board. Friend #1 felt that they could no longer post on Friend #2's board because of #2's comments on a issue for which #1 had strong opinions. But the dropping was without direct communication.

Why is this considered an acceptible way of dealing with things? And why is it easier to drop "that barbarian" without taking the trouble to find out another's true opinion? Why is it impossible tohave friends with whom you disagree - even on major issues? As long as you do not believe the other of engaging in actual violence about something, how do you dismiss people so easily from your life?

It is easy to be ruffled by short statements on Facebook or blogs or message boards. But we should all remember that such things are the cyber equivalent of "sound bites." They cannot possibly convey a complete picture of someone else's beliefs and attitudes. And the reverse is also true: your own beliefs and attitudes are not adequately contained in the short statements you make.

We ought to extend mercy toward those we engage with online. Hostility serves no one, persuades no one.