Went to a Christian discussion group today....discussing the implications of globalisation on the Church. Wish you were there to contribute, SpottedOwl!
Dinner was good and the house is as always....one kind of a wah lau darn cool. It is built for uber-hospitality. Macham Balinese resort. Apparently, the hyper-genial host regularly opens up his home for missionaries to stay. Lucky missionaries!!!! :)
But seriously now, watching how an encouraging word could take root and bounce from people to people, infecting them with enthusiasm got me thinking about memes.
I think the concept of a meme is pretty cool. Ideas do have a life of their own - thoughts voiced out capture our imaginations and trigger off a chain reaction of thoughts in other people's minds.
According to the Mighty Wikipedia (love!): "Though memeticists do not generally agree on a specific definition, one can roughly define 'meme' as any piece of information transferable from one mind to another. Examples might include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods."
It's interesting to see how the collective mind works. In the little blogosphere of ARPC where we all sneakily read each others' blogs like fervent lurkers, it's kinda cool to see how what one blogger writes starts off another blogger on a tangent of their own. A chain of thoughtfulness gets initiated.
It's one of the reasons why I blog about my Christian walk. I think it's important for people to verbalise what they are doing or what they are struggling with. From a Christian point of view, it's about meeting the need to encourage others, being a salt and light, a city on a hill in your culture.
Of course. this must be constantly tempered with awareness that there is a thin line between being open and being boastful or prideful. After all, Jesus cautioned about "not letting your right hand know what your left hand is doing" and admonished the Pharisees for strutting up and down the street with loud, obvious look-at-me prayers.
From a secular perspective, I blog because I see it has a viral effect. Put out encouraging, edifying thoughts into the collective mindscape and watch the meme take a life on its own. It's pretty cool.
Memes of course can backfire on you - talk about the nastyness or silly things and watch the idea grow ALIENS-like and fester in our culture.
Really.
Watch how fast it takes for somebody's favourite catchphrase or intonation to manifest in the speech among a circle of friends. The more prominent a person, the more charismatic or outspoken a person, the more catching the meme. Cool but Scarys-ya?
Memes are like thought viruses that way. Makes one really start to see why the Bible put so much emphasis on guarding one's tongue!
Was discussing with a Christian group today about why gays feel uncomfortable in church even if there was no obvious prejudice and persecution. Gay Christians I talked to felt there was a vibe of exclusion, unconscious but present. Why do some church cultures seem unsafe or unwelcoming to their gay members such that so many of them are driven to set up their own para churches?
Discriminatory jokes, disparaging remarks, caustic side comments by their heterosexual peers seem to go a long way in drawing up divisions where there should not be. With irresponsible words we start off a little meme that quietly but viciously encourages others to follow suit. Discouragement ensues.
There are plenty of other marginalised groups in church and society - singles, people who are not highly educated, people who are not within a certain income bracket etc.
If I regularly bemoan how I hate the way I look, or how little I earn, or how I hate Singaporeans or how shallow men are, or how turning 20/30/40/50 sucks blahblahblah, it is not entirely surprising that it returns to bite me.
I have fueled the meme. I have helped create the very culture I despise.
My theory is that this meme thingee tells us somewhat how self-fulfilling prophecies work. We put the vicious thought out there, we watch it grow as we nourish it continously with loving repetition. The thought takes root in our culture and then comes back to haunt us in a dozen other discouraging voices. We think, "Yeah, see, I was right, the world is like that. Sucks man"
Moral of story for moi: always sow a couple of encouraging messages into the culture each day, be it through word of mouth, SMS, art or whatever medium of choice. Just do it. Spread da lurrrrrrve. Spread da truth.
Hmmmm anyway, those are loose thoughts post a cool discussion. Too pooped to see if I am making sense.
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