Fame You Might Not Want

In our college & singles study of Matthew, we looked this week at Matthew 18:21-35. The story Jesus used was to help answer Peter's question about forgiving his brother, and to further explain the Kingdom of Heaven. (I like John Ortberg's prayer in God Is Closer Than You Think: "Make it down here, like it is up There!!")

We discussed forgiveness, and the need sometimes to make restitution (to fix the damage done by our actions, words, attitudes). We sometimes don't know how the little things we do impact others. Suddenly during our class time, I remembered how 4 of the class members had been involved in an incident on Spring Break of their Senior year, that involved having to rebuild a wooden door.... all of them had forgotten it, but finally remembered it, with prompting. Then came a few dropped heads, a few groans, a few chuckles. They didn't know how I knew about something 3.5 years previous. It was a small thing, that happened out of state, and everything there got fixed and settled.

Life is not always that simple!

Fast forward to 2008, and to an incident that took place privately earlier this year. (This is not a political or judgmental comment, just an observation about publicity). It seems that Levi Johnston spent some personal, private time with a young lady, who happened to be the daughter of the Governor of the largest state (by land area) in the USA. Evidently the family, and the small town, had come to deal with the unwed teenage pregnancy in a manner that worked for them, and honored life. A very private encounter soon became local common knowledge.

Then came a phone call from a Presidential candidate to the Alaskan Governor in August, asking Sarah Palin to become his Vice Presidential candidate. Suddenly, an encounter in April became world news, and a young man finds that his comments and pictures on his MySpace page become public domain. Some websites are actually becoming something of a "fan" page for Mr. Johnston...soon to be a groom and dad. That which was for a while known only to 2 people, is now known by any of the billions of people who can access the web!!!

Again, this is not a judgment, or a political opinion. It's just a suggestion to my young friends, "as the great-grandfather you never knew". Be very careful how you conduct yourself, what you say, what you do, and the attitudes you reflect. Be very cautious about what you post, and ALLOW to be posted, on any website that has your name one it. Someday, and maybe sooner than you think, it could be news that you'd prefer not to have in the "public domain".