11 at Night... What Am I Still Doing Up and Awake?

I need to go to sleep very soon. I didn't get to sleep until this morning at 1 following the wonderful two-hour interview (which you can still catch by clicking on the link in an earlier blog) at NDR Radio. Then I got up at 5:15 and worked on the clearing for over two hours because I knew it was going to get to 90 degrees here today (which is ridiculously hot for the Pacific Northwest with its 85% humidity).

I wrote some more blogs for a client (which he loved) and wrote and sent the beginnings of two white papers to two other clients, then spent the day updating things at Elance and bidding on some more work.

Oh, I did some Facebook stuff, too. Voted on a controversial issue (probably surprising a lot of my brothers and sisters in Christ, unless they've been reading my blog for months) and started to get some snarky remarks from a fellow to a response that a dear friend sent me who disagreed with me about my vote for same-sex marriage, with appropriate biblical quotes to back up her view on the matter.

Before I could respond (humanely and with love and understanding), this Southern gent took on her comments in no uncertain terms, ripping them and her rather savagely. Almost as soon as that response appeared, my friend pulled her response, so I deleted the fellow's response to her response so I could bring the page back to earlier (noncontroversial) topics and avoid causing a verbally abusive, name-calling free-for-all. It is, after all, my Facebook page, and if we can't disagree with civility, I elect to delete unkind responses as soon as I see them.

My friend didn't deserve to be vilified and castigated for defending what she believes the Bible dictates about homosexuality (even when I disagree with her conclusions on the passages in question). I am so sick of circus maximus-type, combative responses: "I disagree with you so strongly that you must be squashed like a bug and humiliated." Not on my watch!

I like the fellow, too, so hated to delete him. But when the original response was pulled, there was nothing left to his response that needed to remain, as he would then be appearing to be responding to thin air. (Besides, he was so snarky in his response, I wrote a response to his response that also had to come out, saying that there are people of good will on both sides of this controversy, which is what makes it a controversy worth delving in to and meditating on...)

So my Facebook page is all tidied up again, and peace reigns, and no one looks intolerant. I just hope my friend isn't feeling embarrassed, or disgraced, or in any way less good about herself than she did before!

Or if she does, maybe it's a God thing and He's helping her discern whether her stand is unduly law-based (Pharisee-ism) at the expense of God's gracious, forgiving spirit. I think it's something we all need to consider when we stake our claim on Bible passages that divide people and cause them to pick up arms, rather than extending their own arms to embrace and honor those whose opinions and beliefs differ from their own.

Blessed are the peacemakers...