Do I really need FaceBook and Other Puzzlements

Let's begin at the beginning shall we?  The central reason for joining Facebook in the first place for myself is so that I could view the offspring of a sweet niece. She has four biological children and one step son.  All those children create mountains of photos waiting to be viewed.  While I love seeing just how many frames it takes to comb out a tangled mass of curls on one pretty little head or the various adorable sleeping positions of other adorable offspring - I just have to wonder, is this enough to keep my voyeur muscles in shape?  I flex them now and then with other 'friends' and their mega sized friends list of people, that I actually do know, but don't care enough about them to add them to my own friends list.
I read the comments of daily lives that are , well let's face it - incredibly mundane.  These folks need to tell the world, when they are waking up, showing us a foot draped over the edge of a perfectly clipped lawn and the tell tale cup of java, steaming on the little table beside them. Yes - they are special.  Just ask them.  
The folks who only live vicariously through others, I have to admit, I have hidden their nonsensical dribble in my news feed.  It feels a bit cruel to unfriend them.  Some of them actually do notice that they no longer can view your page.  However, I believe strongly that if you haven't commented or nudged or poked anyone in say over 8 months, it is perfectly within reason to remove them quietly from your overburdened friends list.  I get a very satisfying feeling when my friends list goes down.  Unlike many others, who brag or post that they are just one friend away from a magic number.  Unbelievable is all I can think of at that point.
I do admit that I am utterly guilty of posting nonsense.  However I have had the good sense to delete it, when  what it contains makes me shudder with, a thought of 'I sure hope no reads this'.  When in doubt, cross it out is a good motto for public forums.
Even in this little blog - read - occasionally by only 2 devoted people. It helps to get this out there, in print to perhaps clarify what is truly churning within the walls of my mind.
I did take a mini vacation from Facebook. It lasted all of 7 days.  I was a mess. How sad.  What is going on in little miss sunshine's world?  What new photo will they post today? You know they always post something precious.  Then there are others, who I dare not unfriend, that spew an entire encyclopedia's worth of reposting. That is what truly irks me.  Profanity is promptly dealt with. A simple - delete is all it takes to remove that smudge from my spotless news feed.
The more I think about it, I truly can say that Facebook is a time bandit.  I prefer to read or do research on Ancestry.com , or sew, or draw, or bake or even garden, when the weather is not so hot that a small child is in danger of sunstroke from five minutes in the summer heat.  You see I have significantly more reasons to not be on Facebook and yet I can't seem to pull myself away from it.  I'd much rather write a daily blog to myself and no one else than scan through pages and pages of respostings, looking for actual news of friends, who couldn't care less, about the goings on in my ordinary life.  I do not mean to insinuate that my facebook friends and family are unfeeling or shallow.  However, if the only contact I ever have with these folks who so happily chirp about my latest photo uploads or find a particular quote I posted meaningful.  If this is the only contact, nothing else - no personal exchange of addresses, phone numbers, personal email addresses, then are they truly worth keeping on board, just because I consider myself a nice person?  Perhaps a bit more soul searching is needed here to come to a proper conclusion.
Facebook is addictive and I need a 5 step plan to get over it, I think.

Grace, One Day At A Time

There are days and there are DAYS that grace seems far away. Days that I settle down in the old 'brown chair' for some quiet time, only to find none. It seems I am ever searching for that special place, that place held once in my mind and is now at the fore front - always. Ever looking for that place of rest, peace, contentment and solace.  I look for order, blessed order and there seems to be none. Smoke and mirrors is what I AM seeing, but the mind is a fertile field of imaginations. The faithful brown chair is on our screened in back porch. A wonderful place to be when the weather is moderate and even when it is a bit too warm, or too cold. Either condition can be dealt with, within certain limits, a fan here or a space heater there.  Comfort can be found.

Sitting in my brown chair, I have visions of planes landing on my roof, or a piece of an engine coming unbolted by the rattling of the deceleration as 90% of all air traffic to the San Antonio airport, uses the airways above my home for their final descent onto the tarmac of the Alamo City. Home of the Spurs, What-A-Burger, The Alamo and scores of armed forces personnel, active and retired.  It is reasonable to assume with Murphy's law being what it is, that something from one of those steel birds will fall off and quite possibly make it's way into my yard, house, car or person. It is also reasonable to assume that such a small disaster will never strike my home, not while we live here, not while God is here.   There it is again - grace.

If grace has ever been part of ones' life, you never mistake anything else for it. Good fortune, or winning the lottery, or anything else.  Grace and God are so indefinable and so magnificent, that one cannot mistake them for anyone or anything other than who God is or what Grace is.  Unmerited favor defines Grace. Immutable dares to describe God, Yahweh, Jehovah. The real deal.

My daughter tells me that she handles money so much in her job, that when she is handed something counterfeit, she knows it immediately. It is not the same - therefore not real. It looks like the real thing in every way, but it isn't and she can tell - by sight first, touch second and the ever present counterfeit pen that with one swipe will verify the authenticity of the nonlegal tender. Grace has not come to us without a price. All things that have value also have worth. You simply cannot have one without the other.  Divine Grace, the "Grace of God is given through the redemptive blood and act of Christ Jesus, has more power to bring salvation, than Adam's sin had to bring misery. "

Each day presents for me a defining moment of grace. The entire day may seem as if it has no redeeming value whatsoever and then, God breaks through the din, through the disorder, through the thick skin of my very full life and 'there it is' simply and wholly Grace. Enough for the day, enough to press forward until the next day, where grace will be needed again, as much as blood to our body and air to our lungs - it is there, when we need it.

I am walking through a journey that in itself and to the natural eye is prone to complete dishevel on so many levels. My spouse and I are unemployed. We are among the many who must find our worth not in man's eyes, or even each other, we must search for and find enough grace each day to be able to look forward to the next one. 

Grace for me today, was seeing my oldest child. Who is no longer a child, but an adult. Her life is tumultuous at best at this point, I want so much more for her. I grieve daily for her losses, those she has felt and those she has given up without so much as a fight. I miss her smile, infectious laugh, quick wit and dirty dishes.  But I held her for a quick hello - telling me about her day, picking up a thing or two from her former home and then she was gone - Grace.

Life will always present us with situations where we have the line in the sand drawn for us. Being lay-ed off is on example.  How we react, respond and live after that is the test, not the unemployment checks. The hundreds of polite rejections from employers. Some have come within minutes of filing out butt numbingly long on-line applications.  The 'sorry' you are a terrific uh  - person, but we like 'this other terrific person' a whole lot more. Buh BYE.  Our metal is placed close to the fires of suffering, and we begin after a while to see someone in the reflection of the fire. Our maker himself. He is the one who is refining us, providing our daily dose of grace and revealing Himself to us little by little. He knows our weaknesses and our strengths.  He provides enough each day to make it through that day - then we rest and it begins all over again.

A new daily nugget of Grace - I wonder what tomorrow's nugget will be?