reader's warning: just skip this one altogether

i exit my facebook account to the log-in screen and catch a glimpse of the image of a smartphone with a caption that reads "leaving facebook? try facebook mobile!" even when i try to get away, it tells me that i don't have to! there's a better way to fuel addiction! all these ways to be "connected." i am so "connected"...only to find that i'm really not that connected at all.

i was doing very well these past weeks. on top of lesson plans and grading, being focused. getting stuff done. motivated. after a long weekend i find myself back to square one: distracted and filling my time with social sites and blogging. i dont drown my sorrows or channel my uncertainties into work. i find that i just dont want to do it at all.

"your religion is what you do in your solitude."

i guess facebook is my religion. yuck.

previously, i was working on answering some questions about Elie Wiesel's memoir Night. i'm going to be making my kids write about their experience with the book, and i want to have thought through my own questions first (well, i got them from somewhere else, actually). so i ended up thinking about how we humans end up hurting each other no matter how hard we try not to. i also starting thinking about how we all seem to have this disease of wanting to be better than someone else. the two are, obviously, connected. one of the questions asks:

Could something like the Holocaust happen today? Discuss more recent genocides, such as the situation in Rwanda in the 1990s and the ongoing conflict in Sudan. Does Night teach us anything about how we can react to these atrocities?

i wish i could say, "no!" but these days, i feel so attuned to the innate brokenness under our "put-together" selves that i just cant. as long as there is greed, self-protection, insecurity, selfishness (the list goes on and on), id have to say "sure. something like that could happen again." to some degree, it happened in cambodia, in rwanda, in darfur.

and in some respects, we're doing that kind of thing now: deciding that there's a hierarchy, that we're better than someone else and we have a right to oppress them. that the rules of humanity don't apply to those who are less than us. gays and lesbians come to mind, by the way.

here i am sounding so self-righteous and enlightened. see what i'm talking about? i say that i am "attuned to the innate brokenness under our 'put together' selves" but what i mean is that i am "attuned to the innate brokenness under your 'put together' self."

i actually dont see my own stuff at all. maybe that's what im trying to do this lenten season? repent. realize brokenness in myself as well as the world around me. its been difficult so far. i find myself unwilling to listen or be quiet and reflective. i find myself unwilling to believe that there's anything wrong with me at all even while clutching at my gaping wounds. i am very willing to believe that if i give up this "thing" for 40 days, if i fast regularly (not even cheating on sundays!), the slate will be washed clean and i can go back to functioning as normal. independent and alone.