Dear Keith

I received an email yesterday from someone who follows me online at Facebook. The person, who asked to remain anonymous, shared some very profound insights and asked some very honest questions about the way we sometimes relate to one another via social media.

I'm sharing this email here, with the person's permission.

I'd like to ask you to read what they have to say and consider how you would respond.
-kg
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Dear Keith,

I have been reading your stuff off and on for quite a while now.  I joined the facebook "community" too, thinking that it would be encouraging.  I have found the opposite to be true, however.

In real life, as well as here on the internet, it kind of feels like more and more I am "losing my voice" in the Christian community. At so many turns, I feel like the words  I have given as an encouragement to someone have been misinterpreted by someone else and provided an opportunity for attack against me or the person I try to encourage.  I am not a great communicator and I am not a biblical scholar, but I do know the words of Jesus.  So I have been a little surprised and kind of overwhelmed with peoples' responses.  It seems that, in large part, readers immediately see/hear/believe the absolute worst in people they may or may not know. It also seems that we are unable to discuss issues without resorting to attacks on people's character.  This makes me think that perhaps the internet is not the correct place for these conversations, and I have grown silent.

That doesn't mean that I have left my faith, or that I have quit trying to serve the people that Jesus puts in my path.  It just means that I do so more as an individual, and not in cooperation with my church(in my community/at large). Perhaps that is just what Jesus wants for me right now, to possibly grow me up a bit.

I wanted to share a couple of my issues, as they seem to echo here, as well.  I don't know how to reconcile things, and the last thing I want to do is start a new argument, but I feel like I must say something.

I have noticed what seems to me to be a political foundation for a lot of arguments on line.  I come from an area where the Republican party is basically labeled the Christian party, and the Democrats are basically seen as the "lost liberals".  I have seen people (I'm not lying!) shake their heads sadly on hearing that a dear friend voted for a Democrat and say "I thought they were a Christian..."  Maybe I'm just still too "young and foolish" but I have to say that seems so simplistic to me.  I don't get it . When I look at both sides, I have to say that I see good and bad.  We are all, after all, human.

I'm not even really discussing politics, although it all strangely gets lumped into that, it seems.  I just want to follow Jesus, and try to walk in the manner that He calls me to, and it seems that I offend my brothers and sisters in Christ as much or more, actually, than I offend the rest of society. I seriously don't get it.  At the risk of offending your readers, I have to share the extreme example that troubles me so deep down, I don't really know what to do with it.

My family has traveled through parts of the U.S.  We have friends and relatives spread out quite extensively.  I have been shocked to hear people I consider to be brothers and sisters in Christ laugh and joke (but perhaps with some seriousness) that they hope someone will "take out" our president. They have their reasons for not liking him, but this hardly reflects how Jesus told us to treat our enemies.

OK, so you're probably wondering why I would pick something so divisive and political to share here, but let me explain.  I consider myself a very conservative person.  I have committed my life to Jesus.  I am trying to love, honor, and serve Him with my whole heart and life.  Yet, in my little community, I live in fear of being labeled a "liberal" because I don't fit in with everything the Republican party stands for.  For some reason, they have the freedom to make jokes about killing someone, but I don't have the freedom to stand up for the poor or those suffering from racial prejudice. I just can't wrap my brain around it.  It is an alienating thing in a small community to be labeled a liberal.  So how do I/we look at issues without the bias of politics??? I am seriously open to suggestions here, because I am struggling.

The other issue that seems to cause incredible amounts of division is that of police brutality.  I have seen some pretty ugly stuff being said.  Let me say, first of all, that I have dear friends, and even relatives who are officers, and I know that their hearts are committed to serving others and sacrificing for their communities. They have a tremendous opportunity to bring the light of Jesus into some very dark places. As you know, and I have read you affirm, the vast majority of them are outstanding individuals, and many have a relationship with Jesus.

Let me temper what I am about to say first with a word of encouragement for you.  I have been reading your writings for a few years now, and I do not see them as "hate" filled.  What I do see in you is a desire to have a heart like Jesus, and to stand up for those that you believe He would make the extra effort to stand up for.  You seem drawn to issues of justice, and giving a voice to the marginalized.  I agree that those things are important.  We can't just put our heads in the sand and pretend that everything is wonderful just because it is for us. There are people for whom (in our country, as well as around our globe) things aren't that great.  In fact, some things are pretty awful. If my heart doesn't cry out for them, then what does that say about my perception of their value to our Savior? (And I realize the issues are so huge and so many, that it can be overwhelming and where do we even begin?)

We can argue back and forth about the problems of our broken system, the abuse of power, the lack of training of certain people for certain situations and specific people groups, and the issue of racial inequality, but in the end, we often end up with nothing beyond the arguing. So my question is, how do we have meaningful conversations?  And after that, how do we move forward to promote change that leads to living out the love of Jesus in these difficult things? I am seriously asking here.  I don't have the heart to argue, even though my heart is burdened with many of the same things you post. I feel a great need for something more productive, and I don't know what it will take to unify us as the Body of Christ into love in action. I don't even know how to encourage objective discussion that will open our imaginations for what the Spirit might want to do to bring His kingdom to this very dark world. But I feel like the love of Christ compels me to move from words into action.

I also wanted to encourage you, because I feel like I have been reading your stuff long enough now that I kind of know at least a little of you heart.  I can see that you are trying to focus on an issue, and I kind of feel like your character is being attacked.  I'm sure that probably hurts.  Perhaps those people haven't read enough of your stuff to see that you stand up for people who don't have a voice. At any rate, I'm sorry.  May we all be more sensitive to how easily our words are misinterpreted and how damaged we all are.

I remain hopeful for true conversation.  I pray for the Spirit's leadership and grace as we seek to find the common ground of the heart of Jesus for all of His children in the midst of so much ugly messiness. May He bring unity and His kingdom to our hearts and lives.

Sincerely,

A broken follower of Jesus

FACEBOOK IS TAPPING YOUR PHONE

Your phone rings and you answer it. “Hello, this is Amanda from Enterprise Marketing Group. Would you be willing to participate in a brief survey of your favorite entertainment brands so that we can sell this information to businesses who want to improve their targeted advertising efforts?”

My guess is that you would probably hang up the phone on someone like this. What would be the point in helping a marketing company gather information about you just so they could send you more junk e-mail, postcards and coupons? Yet , if you have an active Facebook account you’re probably already sharing even more information with these same companies than you realize.

Facebook collects and stores every single fragment of information about you in their constantly enlarging database. They know who your friends are. They know your top 20 favorite films. They know the Top 10 books you’ve ever read. They know which Smurf you’re most like. They know your favorite TV shows. Even more than this, if you are consistent with your status updates, they also know what days of the week you go shopping, or take the kids to baseball, or spend a night out with your friends.

The genius of Facebook is that they have made the collection of your targeted, actionable data very entertaining. Because it’s fun to post your Top 20 favorite movies list to your Facebook page and then share it with all 250 of your friends so that they can also post their lists and share it with their friends, you’ll gladly do it. But, if someone from a professional marketing team called you on the phone to ask you the same information, not only would you hang up, you’d probably ask them to put you on their no-call list.

Before Facebook, and other social media sites, marketers had to depend on very general demographic profiles to essentially guess at what your favorite foods might be, or what your spending habits might involve. They could guess from your birth date that you fell into a general group (baby boomer, Generation X, Tweeners, Metrosexual, etc.), and based on your sex they could place you into a category most likely to purchase certain brands or shop at certain stores. Now, thanks to the growing mania of Facebook, marketers no longer have to guess about your favorite ice cream flavor – they know for a fact that you love Cherry Garcia from Ben and Jerry’s because you posted it on your profile, or shared it with a friend on your wall.

Lately there’s been a lot of talk about changes to Facebook’s privacy policy. Even their own CEO has been the victim of loop holes in the new policy, to hilarious effect. However, the greatest shock is still yet to come. One day, and perhaps it’s already started to happen, all the millions of terabytes of data Facebook has on file about you will be sold to the Enterprise Marketing agencies of the world.

What could be worse than that? Perhaps you’d better sit down for this part. As a friend and I were talking about this very subject one afternoon, he made reference to a chilling discovery about Google’s Picasa photo software. As he was uploading a picture of his family from a recent vacation trip to the museum, the software window that popped up said, “This looks like Aidan.” Aidan is my friend’s elementary-age son. He said his finger hovered over the mouse for a moment as he began to realize that the software had recognized his son’s face due to the tagging features they had used to identify him, and the rest of the family, on other photos that had been uploaded to the website.

Clearly, the applications of this facial recognition software are even more nefarious in the wrong hands. Now if anyone, anywhere, uploads a photo of you to the internet, people can find you and recognize you immediately. Your friends don’t even need to tag you in any future photos because you’ve already been tagged enough times for the software to get a lock on your features.

All of this makes me wonder if public outcry against the selling of our personal information might spawn the creation of newer, "Black Box" style social media where you might be asked to pay a premium to prevent your personal data from ending up on search engine results or allow your personal photos to be seen by the entire planet.

In fact, it makes me wonder whether or not Facebook themselves will eventually offer their users a pay-for-privacy black box solution. Not only would this solve the problem they've created themselves, but it would also earn them billions more dollars a year in revenues from users who value online privacy.

Even though there is a clear warning to this effect, many Facebook users are also unaware that when they participate in third party applications and games on Facebook (such as Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc.), they are granting permission for these companies to collect, use and sell their personal information, and often their friend's personal data as well.

In a safe and perfect world, facial recognition technology and personal information will only be used to direct you to the best deals on your favorite things at exactly the right moment by recognizing your face as you enter your favorite shopping mall, or online store.

Of course, we can only guess who might have already purchased information about you, and your family, and your photos, and your detailed personal likes and dislikes. Hopefully it will be the good guys who take charge of this data.

Hopefully.

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Keith Giles is a marketing copywriter and published author and blogger who lives in Orange County, California. Find out more at http://www.KeithGiles.com or follow him at http://twitter.com/keithgiles