My, My (How the Tables Have Turned)

Amidst my aimless wanderings about the internet, I came across this website, which was part of the inspiration for my last post. What you do if you have an account is, you "pin" things to your "board," which is to say, you post pictures of things you like on your page.

At its best, the site is a big bulletin board of inspiration for DIY ideas and blog posts about how happy you are (see below). At worst Most of the time, it is a whole entire website devoted to coveting things. Apparently everyone on this site is an American female, so almost everything falls into one of these categories: clothes, baby animals, food, home decorating ideas, having a perfect body, beautiful men.

But it's so insidious. "ooh, chocolate cake"; "maybe I could make that dress"; "that sunset makes me want to get out my camera"... somehow turns into, "wow, not fair"; "I have to have that"; "how come I'm not that creative?", and you never even notice. The other night I was just passing some time scrolling down the page, oblivious to the fact that I was soaking up all the covetousness and self-indulgence and desire for things of the world that were ever-so-stealthily being promoted here. Something reminded me of a vintage website I love, and all of a sudden this post was on facebook:

"if someone buys these earrings before i think of a good excuse...
[yes, they're really cheap. no, i don't have ANY money.]"

Can we talk about this? I mean, apart from the fact that these T-rex earrings are [still] fantastic. But what really honestly scares me is how quickly I turned into an awful, grasping, whining child pulling Oreos off the grocery store shelves even though there are already cookies in the cart.

No one likes those kids. And I don't like me when I'm threatening unknown virtual shoppers for "stealing" my potential purchase, and whining about how "poor" I am when actually I own at least 30 pairs of earrings, and doing so all over facebook as if other people should care how much I want to own T-rex earrings.

[it's still a lot.]

Maybe this is why the Bible talks about being "always on your guard," and "shrewd as snakes but gentle as doves," and "in the world but not of the world." Tall orders, Paul. and Jesus. Tall orders. I never meant to absorb others' patterns of discontentment and general brattiness. It just kind of... happened.

T-rex earrings: super cool. Oreo-grubbing toddler-Lyndsey: still working on the whole "discipleship" thing.

Have you ever forgotten to influence the world around you... because you were busy being influenced by it?