bloggrity? inbloggrity? bloggtegrity? anyway.....

Once upon a time, there was a girl called Rebecca Marie. Well, Rebecca Marie wasn’t her real name, but it was pretty close. And, if we’re splitting hairs, she wasn’t a “girl,” either. She was a woman of thirty-one. She loved to write creatively. She had two books going, and the ideas forming for a third. She considered writing to be therapy, the way some women used shopping, or Prozac.

She was happy. Not with anything in particular. Just in general. And then web logging came along. “Yippeeeeee!” Rebecca Marie cried! “I can write whatever I want! Whenever I want to! About any thing I fancy to write about! This is just grand.”

So, her career as a “blogger” began. She wrote about intriguing hobo’s, one armed strippers and car dealership commercials. She wrote about abandoning pets and chopping down trees. She wrote about feisty birds, falling siblings and icy tracks. You name it, Rebecca Marie blogged about it.

Amazing things started happening to her. Strangers started leaving comments on her blog! She made real live friends! She even began socializing with blog friends outside of the internet. She felt truly blessed by her blog.

The problem was, Rebecca Marie was never a girl that you would consider the delicate flower type. She was even known to be a bit crass. It was always a struggle for Rebecca Marie. How could she find balance between being true to the personality that God gave her, while still acting like a child of God?

Rebecca Marie decided that the best route was to just be true to herself AND God. So she wrote the stories that she wanted to write, but chose her words carefully. She even talked about delicate topics, like funny pharmaceutical ads for erectile dysfunction. She enjoyed herself thoroughly. Her faithful readers did too. It was a wonderful place, bloggerville. She was a happy resident.

But one day, bad things started happening. Things Rebecca Marie never intended. People got mean. People got rude. People got more crass than Rebecca Marie was comfortable with. The worst part of it was that Rebecca Marie started worrying that she may have crossed the line as well.

So, she tried to fix it. She went all around bloggerville, deleting comments that she had made that might be construed as offensive. She left the ones she wanted to leave, like the one about toe beards on Breanna’s site, or the one about boys being icky that she left on Ted’s site (which was hard for her to leave, frankly, as she had misspelled “icky”) or the one about clowns on Tabitha’s site, or the one about winning contests on Bill’s site (and so on and so on). But the ones that were potentially offensive, and the ones that could be misunderstood, she deleted.

She even deleted some of her very own posts, which was very hard for her to do. She deleted a post about a great April Fool’s joke. She deleted one about pharmaceutical ads. She didn’t want to delete these entries. She really loved these entries. She thought they were very funny. And anyone who knew Rebecca Marie, would know what her intent was with those entries. They would know that she is a very good girl, who sometimes pokes fun at the obviously funny and ironic things in this world. But, she had more concern for doing the right thing than she had love for her entries.

Now Rebecca Marie didn’t believe that she had done anything wrong by writing about these things. What she did believe, deep down in the depths of her heart, was that if anyone could ever possibly misconstrue her writing as tolerance of bad behaiviour, then her writing must go.

So, Rebecca Marie decided that she would begin immediately to blog with integrity. Her most sincere hope was that others would join her as well.

The End.

I Corinthians 10:31-33

31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 32 Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God– 33 even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.


P.S. Friends, please do not stop commenting on my entries..... I love your feedback. I only want to do my best to be the child God has called me to be.

P.S. numero dos. My most sincere thanks to those of you concerned that I may have had my feelings trampled, or had trouble at work or church because of this. That is not why I wrote the above story about Rebecca Marie. The main reason that I wrote it is that it is heavy on my heart to remember that although the internet is LARGE, the world is so very small. I mostly wanted this to be a call to kindness. Will I still tell stories about the observations I make? Absolutely. Will I still be rude? Just try and stop me......