Yes, I know Lent is supposed to be 40 days but you know, I figure Holy Week counts too so as I said, I'm extending the Fast to Monday of next week. Not really expecting a deluge of messages but ah well, it will be good to see what Stalkers Anonymous have been up to. In the mean time, I need to finish my dissertation and reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. Its taken me ages to get to this point of reading but better late than never. Its almost the end of term, I'm tired and bored but one must not loose sight of the prize. A short break to reevaluate things and then back to the grind. And I need to find a job as well...sheesh...

Wow. Its 8 minutes past midnight but I can't get to sleep because I am just so overwhelmed by God's graciousness and mercy towards me. To think this time last year I was lamenting the fact that music had just gone out of my life and I was having to start from scratch. I am still not perfect, my voice is not the greatest but oh Lord, nothing beats the feeling of a moment of praise and worship that just comes together, and your Name is just lifted HIGH and HIGHER above all others. Thank you for the worship Lord, thank you for the worship. A Gospel music concert and a praise and worship evening in which testimonies were shared and people were touched and You spoke healing into the hearts and minds of many. There is truly none like you. I'm glad I gave up facebook for some time Lord, I really am, because I feel like I've made room for You in my heart and in return You have blessed me by revealing Yourself to me in new friends and new relationships and new experiences. Not to mention a peace that passes all understanding...how can I say THANK YOU?!!

I am waiting for my nail polish to dry so I can only type with two fingers. its sort of like being back in school learning how to use computers all over again...ha ha ha. Anyway, its day 32 of the Facebook Fast and I'm definitely gonna keep it going into Holy Week but I am now seriously considering making the change permanent. I feel like not having Facebook has cured me to some extent of my social laziness. I have met so many people in the last few weeks its ridiculous. On the one hand it may just be a phase in my life that I'm going through but on the other,not having the option to secretly stalk good looking guys at my university can only be a good thing. Facebook in itself is not a problem, it just feels to me like its helping to facilitate some weaknessess in my personality - my inherent shyness around members of the opposite sex, my laziness when it comes to keeping in touch and my desire to wait for people to contact me first, my inability to remain focused on a single task for inordinate amounts of time, and my arrogance and penchant for showing off.

Which is why I think the time has come to say goodbye, I have enough psychological issues without a. making it easier for new ones to fester and b. advertising the festering to the world. Sigh...anyway, ask me after Holy Week and we'll see.

This is a post from the blog of Josh Harris, one of my favourite authors. He wrote the book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye which I've never read but I have read and reread his book Boy Meets Girl which is about rethinking relationships and the way we approach them. Anyway, its good to see that I'm not the only one resisting the addiction of the MyFace...ha ha ha..lisez and enjoyez!!

My One and Only Week on Facebook
Last week, on a whim, I signed up for a Facebook account. I had no friends and no idea what I was doing. So I asked for advice and begged for friends. I got both. A bunch of people--everyone from students at my church, to a very helpful atheist professional blogger, to Christian uber-blogger Tim Challies--took the time to thoughtfully answer my questions. I learned a lot and got a kick out of many of the humorous answers. And if all that weren't enough, many of you "friended" me.

For the past seven days I've really enjoyed Facebook. It is a lot fun and a great way to connect with people. I now understand why it's so incredibly popular. But today I decided to bring my Facebook career to an abrupt end. I'm weird, huh? But here are some of the reasons I'm calling it quits...

First, I just don't have enough self-control not to check my page constantly. In one week I saw what many of you warned me about: it's addictive. I found myself tempted to update my "status" every five minutes. "Joshua Harris is walking across his office. Joshua Harris sitting in his office chair. Joshua Harris is wasting valuable time describing what he is doing."

This year I'm starting work on a new book and when I'm writing I am looking for any excuse not to write. When I'm supposed to be writing I am so easily sidetracked. I want to clear my inbox, weed the garden, answer emails that I've already answered, trim my nails...you name it, I am looking for distraction. If I had the temptation to check my Facebook during a writing project, I'd be a goner. The book would never get written.

But even if I weren't writing a book, I don't need another reason for staring at a computer screen. I'm constantly needing to evaluate is how much time I spend emailing, browsing and blogging. Now obviously a lot of that activity is good, useful work. But sometimes it can be a time-waster. I think God's been helping me improve at knowing when to unplug from cyberville and connect with the real, rich world of reality--playing with my kids, talking to my wife, taking a walk. Throwing Facebook in the mix of my online options is just a little too much for me right now.

The other reason I feel right about making my time with Facebook just a visit is a little harder to explain. How do I put this? I found that it encouraged me to think about me even more than I already do--which is admittedly already quite a bit. Does that make any sense? Without any help from the internet I'm inclined to give way too much time to evaluating myself, thinking about myself and wondering what other people think of me. If that egocentrism is a little flame, than Facebook for me is a gasoline IV feeding the fire. I need to grow in self-forgetfulness. I need to worry more about what God is thinking of me. I need to be preoccupied with what he's written in his word, not what somebody just wrote on my "wall."

And, finally, I need to read more. There are so many good books I want to read and so little time. If I added up the few minutes here and there that I spent checking Facebook this past week it wouldn't be an insignificant amount of time. I'd rather give that time to reading.

Anyway, all of the above is totally personal and is in no way an indictment on other Facebookers. This is just where I'm at right now. Who knows...I might be back when the kids are grown and the book is written and I have more self-control. Okay, it might be awhile.

To all the people who so very kindly "friended" me I'm so sorry to have wasted your time. I hope we can still be friends in the real world.

Thanks for letting me visit.

The heavens were silent
the earth weeped in pain
nations were trembling
and hope never came
a terror filled the air and it won't go away
we needed a Hero to come and save the day...

Kirk Franklin's jam "Hero" adequately captures the sentiment in Kenya I think. We needed a Hero to come and save the day. Instead we got to greedy men willing to finally share the pieces of the pie. I suppose you could say its better than nothing. Its certainly better than the no mans land that the country has negotiated for itself so far but...you can't help having this sense of hanging on the edge of your seat. I'm waiting for the laughter to come back. As a nation our sense of humour has always been like a floater keeping us over all the choppy waters of our existence.However in the last few months Kenyans have forgotten laughter and now live face to face with the sobering reality that our lives aren't all rainbows and butterflies. Its been a shock to the system, even more so when we think its not over yet. The agreement has been signed yes, but the hard graft...that's only just beginning.

Lord, we need a Hero.