I'm just sayin' ...

Okay, so my previous post was unfounded. It did make for a funny story though, so I left it posted with follow-up note explaining the situation.

As most of you know, I have trodden a well-worn path to the snopes.com site. I live in fear of spreading false rumours by invading every inbox I have access to with a story that is simply just not true. It's just a thing with me. I don't know if this fear can be attributed to my honest God-fearing character who wants to stand up for truth and justice or if I simply hate being wrong.

Somehow, we've come to accept "saying" things in cyberspace that we wouldn't possibly dream of voicing in words and actions. Imagine the following scenes:

Would you meet me at Save-On Foods if I phoned you up one day to give you a special once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get wealthy. If I told you that Jimmy Pattison (I don't even know if he still owns SaveOn so don't get excited) was standing in the parking lot and every time someone returned their cart to the shopping cart parking garage, not only would you get your quarter back, Jimmy Pattison would give you a dollar for every shopping cart in the garage. Imagine if you could get everyone you know to participate- that's a lot of dollars being passed around for free. It can't hurt anything, let's meet in the parking lot and take a cart back, just in case. This scene is about as likely to happen as Bill Gates giving you 10 cents for every person you spam an email to.

Imagine if I went and knocked on the door my neighbour asking for help finding my grandson, who lives 6 doors down from me because he climbed out his bedroom window in the night and most certainly must be wandering the streets in his bare feet and packing his kitten. Do you think perhaps they'd question the validity of a 13-month-old climbing out a window and "wandering" anywhere before they began pounding on doors getting everyone they know involved in an unfounded search?

How serious would you take a pastor announcing that each member of the church has to distribute a flyer expressing love and hope to every person they know within the following seven days, because if they don't take the time to do it, then God surely won't take the time to hear their prayers from this day forward. AND 27 bad things will happen to you in the following week.

I don't know exactly what God meant when He said in Prov 12:22-23 The Lord detests lying lips, but He delights in men who are truthful; A prudent man keeps his knowledge to himself but the heart of fools blurts out folly.

In his scripture he included 1Tim 5:13 They get in the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying things they ought not to.

Frankly, I don't think God really knew about the internet and email back then, so surely it is exempt.

Now don't take this personally. I'm just sayin'...