
Washington Heights, New York City. November 27, 2011
365 Part Deux






A few nights ago, I realized that I had misidentified my dog as my son rather than my daughter. This was a mistake that she demanded that I rectify (or she was hungry – with dogs, it is hard to tell the difference). While editing our relationship, I noticed that facebook had finally added “-in-law” options. YES! With joy, I finally fixed my status with all my in-laws. And it was during that little journey that I discovered something disturbing: you can label a relationship between you and another profile as expected: child.
What.
I know, I know. I have heard, and seen, fetuses having their own facebook profiles. Mothers and fathers, in their excitement, quickly create a profile for their not-yet-born. They are excited and want to post their sonograms everywhere (changing their own profile picture to it isn’t enough). I can’t hate them too much for that. But…well…I can say that it’s a little strange. I mean, as a creature living in the digital age, all current children are going to be digitalized, photographed, iphoned, blackberried, smartphoned, tweeted, facebooked, and blogged for their entire lives. My parents have a suitcase in their basement containing photographs of me, my brother, and some documentation of our finer moments during our earlier years. My future kid is gonna end up having a digital suitcase online. It’s a different world and I think I’m going to let them have their own facebook, created on their own terms. I figure, with them being a future pk (pastor’s kid), they already have enough things counting against them. I’ll at least give them their own online identity – but they better friend me. That’s all I demand ask.
So, on Christmas Eve Night, the CBS Christmas special was shown. It was actually filmed in early November at my seminary (General Theological Seminary). Even though I didn’t do anything during the service except sit in the audience, if you watch closely, you’ll see my lovely face all over the place. And, lucky for you, the entire thing is on youtube! We’ve still got a few more days in this Christmas Season so enjoy.