Note: Apparently when one deactivates, their page still pops on and off of Facebook (at least currently). Around September 9, someone at work asked what was up with my FB page. I asked them what do they mean. And they told me that my page has been on and off about 8 times. I'd appear as a friend on their page and then I'd disappear. Well, 'twern't me doin' it. Not sure what's up with that. She said it was happening with some other FB friends as well; they had deactivated and were popping on and off.
***
I realized this past week that I haven't blogged about deactivating my Facebook account.
I pulled the plug toward the middle of August. Some folks have asked me, "Why?"
The simple answer is, "To simplify."
Like other folks I'd thought from time to time about deactivating. But I would always opt to stay plugged in because of the great connections I had found, the cyber companionship FB offers via chat and reading what folks are up to and responding and updating my own status, the platform it provided me to express my voice and share about my blogs and about art, to support people's expression and art and writing, and probably some other reasons - if I were to ponder it more.
As I was backpacking in May on the Appalachian Trail for over a week, I seriously pondered about pulling the FB plug. At the time, I opted to stay for the reasons above and also for future promotion of a project I was working on at the time.
Yet I too often felt a tether to my FB page and a responsibility to respond and keep up with it, as well other pages and groups I had joined on FB. I like to support folks.
I know I could have simply ignored the tether feeling, or continued to put it in perspective. But it was still a tether.
Once the project I was working on was aborted..well..damage was wrought due to the way it was aborted...and I felt silenced..and wasn't sure about parts of my online presence. The day after that project ended cold turkey, I took to the Appalachian Trail for a LONG day hike some 15 miles across the Roan Highlands in Tennessee. I again contemplated pulling the FB plug, and maybe even Twitter and my blogs. Oh my.
Twitter and my blogs deleted? Hmm, that would be too much of a disappearance. Though, one's postings never really disappear (at this juncture of cyber history) once on the net.
Facebook? I felt the most *duty* to it, a duty I really no longer desired to feel. The tether feel.
In less than two weeks from that hike, I sent my FB page into the deactivation vault.
I admit that I felt a wee bit guilty for abandoning my FB page. It felt somewhat like I was committing a type of social-cyber suicide. And in one sense, I was. I also felt like I was destroying part of my identity. Huh?
Those feelings just further confirmed another reason for me to deactivate. Facebook is not my identity. Yikes!
I made awesome connections during my brief FB lifespan, which was around twoish years I think. Some of those connections will remain.
I'm glad, for now, that I deactivated. I have less emails and life is simpler.
Deactivate. The word reminds me of the Borg. Faceborg? Haha.
I still have my Twitter accounts though. I like Twitter. For me it's much simpler than FB.
But who knows, one day I may stop Tweeting. Perhaps I'll take up neighing at that point.
***
September 3, 2010
September 1, 2010
jury dismissed
I've taken pen to paper lately.
I used to live for ink. To have time for my 'guilty pleasure' of journaling. To dive into the pages, between the covers.
In the past few years, I do more composing at the computer. And since I've had my laptop, a bit over a year now, I type from it a lot. It's like it has become another appendage. Funny that, because just five years ago I didn't really like computers.
As I sat in the Jury Pool Room at the courthouse last week awaiting to be called into the courtroom and questioned as potential jurors are, I wrote with ink in one of my journals, a Moleskine.
****
[journal entry]
Thursday, 8/26/10
I currently find myself not feeling as free to write publicly. Sit with that Carol. Just sit with it in your heart.
Get back to writing Carol. Write for no one else.
But is that possible?
Once, or rather since, I blog and am public with my words, I find it difficult to write for me. Yet that is how I started. Some of my first public things I put on display were writings that were hidden in my journals. Recall how nervous I was? How I trembled at my keyboard?
Once a person opens their life for the public to view, once a writer exposes their soul, those inner works are committed to the public eye. Once that happens, the writer is open to criticism and their words become open game. Open game on a few levels.
- The "quality" of the writing in content, grammar, structure, punctuation, etc.
- Is what is written accurate? Facts, places, peoples, times.
- The author's motive gets attacked. Questions as to why is the author making their life public - it must be pride of wanting attention or narcissistic or something along those lines.
- Whatever is written and read, the reader interprets as the reader will. The reader brings their life experiences with them to the page.
So especially in light of the fourth thing above, why do I, Carol, write publicly? Hmm. Perhaps the fourth thing doesn't prompt the question, but rather the answer. My answer, at least part of the answer, as to why I blog.
This is something I come back to again and again.
If I were to create, design, display a poem or a piece of music or work of art - why do I put in on display? That would be a good question for any artist, would it not?
[end of journal entry]
****
I then pulled out Sudoku while I continued waiting in the Jury Pool Room.
The trial was a criminal trial involving a drug dealer. The accused plead guilty that morning. There was no need at that point for a jury. We were all dismissed.
August 27, 2010
For the Love of God
September, 2005, or there-abouts
It seems I worked the afternoon shift for Children's Fellowship. I can't recall now what children were in my group, my little fellowship which I oversaw for the few hours in the afternoon. There wasn't much to oversee really, since every activity was planned out in advance.
In The Way we were taught to "plan the adversary out of your life." The adversary was the devil, the dark spiritual force that "walketh about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour." We were to be ever diligent to not allow a crack in our hedge of believing, to allow no fear. It was through fear that the adversary could gain a foothold. If he got a foothold, he could gain deeper access to our lives, taking us "off the Word."
That's how devil spirits could get into our minds and even into our bodies causing diseases. But our positive believing could hold diseases at bay. If I couldn't believe to be healed in a category, I was at fault. But even then I was to have no condemnation. I would continue to confess the positives of the Word; that is how I could build my believing. That and by doing the five basics of witnessing, speaking in tongues, abundantly sharing, studying the Word, and fellowshipping with likeminded believers. Yet God was always the healer and was to always get the glory.
But by this Limb Day, I was doubting some of that doctrine. Why was it that since I had gone outside the Household of The Way I had gotten so much better in my physical and emotional health? It had to be my believing. It had to be that my reading and writing had somehow built my believing to allow God to work greater in my heart. But weren't all our needs supposed to be met within the Household? Craig had taught that if we are walking with the Father, that our needs would be met on a 24-hour basis. Sure some things took a bit longer, but most our needs should be met in that 24-hour period or sooner.
But Craig was gone now. The believers didn't discuss Craig anymore, except maybe in private conversations behind closed doors.
After the Saturday Limb Day evening event, whatever it was, Hubby and I met up with Linda ending up in her or our hotel room talking into the wee morning hours.
Linda had been in our Home Fellowship when John and I lived in Hickory. We had moved from Hickory in 1997 mainly because most of the Hickory Way believers had quit standing on the Word. Most had chosen to follow Mike and Jane who were made "mark and avoid" in 1995. The remaining people who chose to stand with the Household drove to our home for Fellowship from Valdese or Morganton, some 15 to 30 miles away. All except Linda; she still lived in Hickory.
Linda and I had known each other since high school when we used to party together. But I wasn't the one that got Linda into the Word. My friend Debra had witnessed to Linda sometime in the early 1990s. At the time Debra was a single mom with three boys. Linda was a single mom with the three girls.
Though I wasn't the one that got Linda to Fellowships, I had witnessed to her back in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Linda still remembered when I had her and her then-husband listen to a cassette tape on which Craig taught "Truth versus Tradition." I had loved that teaching. I had loved Craig and how he taught with passion and how he confronted religion.
I didn't like religion.
Here we sat now, in 2005, in a hotel room discussing the Ministry and how it had changed. Linda shared how the Sunday teaching tapes were boring to her, but that it must be her. That she just needed to change her mind, because after all it, the teaching and the Ministry and all that entailed, was still the Word of God.
"The Word, the Word, the Word and nothing but the Word," Doctor used to say. The Word was always right.
I sat in the upholstered chair in the hotel room listening as she spoke. My gut had butterflies. My heart trembled. A hint of anger lie just beneath the surface, a hint that I would quickly dismiss. Anger scared me.
Should I say anything?
"It's not you Linda." The words seem to come out all by themselves. "I feel the same. The teachings are dead. I've pulled out some of the old teachings by Doctor. I've been listening to those instead. Sometimes I miss Craig. I miss his passion."
I dare not go so far as to tell her what I had read on Greasespot Cafe. Besides, I still wasn't sure what to believe about the stuff I'd read. And people there seemed so bitter and one-sided. I didn't want to be one-sided. I didn't want to be bitter.
Then Linda opened up about what had happened to her and her family in the Fellowship where she started going after Hubby and I had moved away from Hickory. It was with the same people by whom Eric and Debra had been publicly shamed. Linda and her daughters had experienced similar. But still, Linda continued to attend Fellowship. It was the accuracy of the Word that kept her coming back. That kept us all coming back. Where else was there to turn?
Listening to Linda further confirmed my doubts. But how could I ever leave? When and if I leave, do I tell Linda? What about my family? How could my children get the accuracy of the Word if I left the Household? How could they know the truth? How could they function in life without the Household? How could we stay a family if we all weren't likeminded on the Word?
The next morning, after the Sunday morning service, I helped with clean-up from the Limb Weekend. I loved the saints, the believers in the Household.
I loved God. I loved the Ministry.
Six weeks later, I left The Way.
It seems I worked the afternoon shift for Children's Fellowship. I can't recall now what children were in my group, my little fellowship which I oversaw for the few hours in the afternoon. There wasn't much to oversee really, since every activity was planned out in advance.
In The Way we were taught to "plan the adversary out of your life." The adversary was the devil, the dark spiritual force that "walketh about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour." We were to be ever diligent to not allow a crack in our hedge of believing, to allow no fear. It was through fear that the adversary could gain a foothold. If he got a foothold, he could gain deeper access to our lives, taking us "off the Word."
That's how devil spirits could get into our minds and even into our bodies causing diseases. But our positive believing could hold diseases at bay. If I couldn't believe to be healed in a category, I was at fault. But even then I was to have no condemnation. I would continue to confess the positives of the Word; that is how I could build my believing. That and by doing the five basics of witnessing, speaking in tongues, abundantly sharing, studying the Word, and fellowshipping with likeminded believers. Yet God was always the healer and was to always get the glory.
But by this Limb Day, I was doubting some of that doctrine. Why was it that since I had gone outside the Household of The Way I had gotten so much better in my physical and emotional health? It had to be my believing. It had to be that my reading and writing had somehow built my believing to allow God to work greater in my heart. But weren't all our needs supposed to be met within the Household? Craig had taught that if we are walking with the Father, that our needs would be met on a 24-hour basis. Sure some things took a bit longer, but most our needs should be met in that 24-hour period or sooner.
But Craig was gone now. The believers didn't discuss Craig anymore, except maybe in private conversations behind closed doors.
After the Saturday Limb Day evening event, whatever it was, Hubby and I met up with Linda ending up in her or our hotel room talking into the wee morning hours.
Linda had been in our Home Fellowship when John and I lived in Hickory. We had moved from Hickory in 1997 mainly because most of the Hickory Way believers had quit standing on the Word. Most had chosen to follow Mike and Jane who were made "mark and avoid" in 1995. The remaining people who chose to stand with the Household drove to our home for Fellowship from Valdese or Morganton, some 15 to 30 miles away. All except Linda; she still lived in Hickory.
Linda and I had known each other since high school when we used to party together. But I wasn't the one that got Linda into the Word. My friend Debra had witnessed to Linda sometime in the early 1990s. At the time Debra was a single mom with three boys. Linda was a single mom with the three girls.
Though I wasn't the one that got Linda to Fellowships, I had witnessed to her back in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Linda still remembered when I had her and her then-husband listen to a cassette tape on which Craig taught "Truth versus Tradition." I had loved that teaching. I had loved Craig and how he taught with passion and how he confronted religion.
I didn't like religion.
Here we sat now, in 2005, in a hotel room discussing the Ministry and how it had changed. Linda shared how the Sunday teaching tapes were boring to her, but that it must be her. That she just needed to change her mind, because after all it, the teaching and the Ministry and all that entailed, was still the Word of God.
"The Word, the Word, the Word and nothing but the Word," Doctor used to say. The Word was always right.
I sat in the upholstered chair in the hotel room listening as she spoke. My gut had butterflies. My heart trembled. A hint of anger lie just beneath the surface, a hint that I would quickly dismiss. Anger scared me.
Should I say anything?
"It's not you Linda." The words seem to come out all by themselves. "I feel the same. The teachings are dead. I've pulled out some of the old teachings by Doctor. I've been listening to those instead. Sometimes I miss Craig. I miss his passion."
I dare not go so far as to tell her what I had read on Greasespot Cafe. Besides, I still wasn't sure what to believe about the stuff I'd read. And people there seemed so bitter and one-sided. I didn't want to be one-sided. I didn't want to be bitter.
Then Linda opened up about what had happened to her and her family in the Fellowship where she started going after Hubby and I had moved away from Hickory. It was with the same people by whom Eric and Debra had been publicly shamed. Linda and her daughters had experienced similar. But still, Linda continued to attend Fellowship. It was the accuracy of the Word that kept her coming back. That kept us all coming back. Where else was there to turn?
Listening to Linda further confirmed my doubts. But how could I ever leave? When and if I leave, do I tell Linda? What about my family? How could my children get the accuracy of the Word if I left the Household? How could they know the truth? How could they function in life without the Household? How could we stay a family if we all weren't likeminded on the Word?
The next morning, after the Sunday morning service, I helped with clean-up from the Limb Weekend. I loved the saints, the believers in the Household.
I loved God. I loved the Ministry.
Six weeks later, I left The Way.