October 16, 2007
Fast Forwards
Occasionally I’ll get a forwarded email from someone who inadvertently included my address in the CC. For instance one day I got a porn calendar pin-up from a rogue family member who later protested it was sent by mistake. More recently I received an email on the church prayer chain which was neither a prayer request nor a prayer update. Apparently the originator accidentally used her prayer chain directory when sending a political joke to a friend. I doubt if the Democrats on the prayer chain would agree, but from the Republican persuasion, the joke was funny. Taking liberty to update and paraphrase Matthew 12:34 shall we say, ‘For out of the overflow of the heart the finger forwards.’
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----”Words mean things.” It’s an expression I admire. But not only do words mean things, after much social use some phrases begin to mean things. Some gestures mean things, and to each of use individually, some actions and memories begin to mean particular things. The human mind is always busy finding recurring patterns to which it can attach a condensed idea that it will treat as a tag for a meaning - much as a word is a tag for a meaning. Then after years and numerous occurrences, that condensed idea becomes ingrained as the actual meaning of the action, memory, gesture, phrase, or word.
-----Now the mind is prepped to pull up and use that tag quickly while interacting with others. But the more use it gets without some careful review of what actually underlies it, the more the condensed idea tag can begin to stray from the actual substance which the mind first knew. So, as the inadvertent e-mails you have brought to our attention get poked around by the careless fingers, inadvertent expressions, ideas, gestures, and actions get poked around by careless minds. We all do it, and we have all laughed at it, or been upset as a result of it.
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