One of the things that has struck me the last several weeks is how many people out there in the blogosphere are (drum roll please) a lot like me. I do not want to dwell too much on this but frankly I do not have many Close Male Friends(tm). Highly introverted. Mostly a loner. (Cue sad violin music.)
Read friend’s blog who cites some other blog and before you know it I discover all these fascinating people all over the country with whom I have much in common.
Today’s example is Calvin Park who is working on a degree at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts. (Massachusetts? Only my home state.) Among other things I came across at his blog Random Bloggings is this older post “10 Random Things About Me”:
Here’s my list, in no particular order:
1. I was once the official beta tester for a live CD Linux distro.
2. I have watched FFVII being played through five times, but have never actually seen anyone beat the final boss.
3. I am far more interested in attending SBL than a pastor’s conference of any type.
4. I want to visit the Great Wall of China.
5. I realized yesterday that if my job/occupation/ministry did not involve teaching I would die.
6. At one time I knew the names of all the Jedi trainees that were originally brought to Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Academy on Yavin IV.
7. I secret sin is Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
8. I am a sick person. If I score less than a 96 on anything I feel like I did horribly, especially on language tests/exams/quizzes.
9. My favor TV shows are sci-fi, but my favorite books are fantasy.
10. I own a Dell Inspiron 6400 that runs Ubuntu. I am in heaven.
I match up with about 7/10 of this list. (Not to mention Hebrew Bible and “Civilization IV”.) And “B.C.E.” is not liberal.
What frustrates me is I think, “Dang it, why do I discover people like this who live on the other side of the nation from me? We could hang!”
But where has God placed us? And what local friends has God given us? To me one of the problems of the Internet is we form “relationships” with people elsewhere and forget to form close friendships with people where we live. (Not to denigrate forming friendships with people we meet over the Web.)
Thus endeth the self-pity party.
