A Distant Person I have on Facebook has Disappointed Me (Let's Cry Together) in Days of My Destiny

When I was at uni, I had a mate named Daryl. He was a healthy guy, he ran competitively and never said anything mean about anyone. One day, I was at uni with my closer friend Tracey, doing not much (it was around exam time) and we bumped into Daryl. He was hanging out with another guy called Josh. Josh wasn't a uni student, he was just there for the day, trying to score or something, or at least that's how he came across. I wasn't interested at all though (married, hello), but I could see how his charm would work on other girls. After talking a bit of crap, he told me he was a Christian. I have no idea where that came from, I suppose our meaningless chat became a little deeper and more meaningful, but anyway that was that, I eventually had to leave. A few days later, I saw that Josh had added me as a friend on facebook. A few months after that, I was walking along Southbank with L one day, when I bumped into Josh in the early evening. I introduced him to L and we had some small talk before we kept going. Josh was there that day to audition for a reality TV show. He had his guitar with him. A few hours later, we saw him again. I asked him how the audition went, he said he was told that he had a great voice and great talent, but that what he sang wasn't really what they were after. I said, "Oh what?! Why????" He told me he'd sung a song about Jesus.

Anyway, I don't think I've ever seen him since then but I've had him on facebook all this time. I've deleted other people from time to time, but never Josh, because he always posts positive things on there and I like positive people. Besides, I really admired that he was a young, Christian guy and not afraid to show it.

Well as facebook works, I've been able to keep casual tabs on what's happening in his life according to what shows up on my newsfeed. Around a year ago or so, he met a girl and was instantly in love. All his posts were about her, and he had a lot of photos of her on there. She's GORGEOUS, by the way. Well they got married the other day, and a LOT - a LOT of people were happy for him, liking and commenting congrats and all. Oh, also in the meantime, he has formed a proper band, and his wedding gift to everybody (on facebook) was the release of their new track, which was free for everybody who joined his facebook wedding event page.

I thought that was pretty cool. I've all-round thought he was a pretty cool dude and I've just generally been quite happy for him, especially happy that he has found somebody to share his life with.

But the other day.... he posted a status which he warned was "controversial." He basically gave his big testimony on what his beliefs were regarding gay marriage and what the Bible says about it, after Kevin Rudd's answer to that pastor on Q&A a week or so ago. So naturally, a lot of people had a lot to say on Josh's facebook post regarding this. There were some real Christian people there, judging and pointing fingers and name-calling, and there were some Christians who didn't. There were some other Christians again commenting on the end times and how interesting it was to see the true Christians be separated from the false ones and bla bla bla. (For the record, I was brought up in the church so none of this dialogue and lingo is new to me.) Then there were non-Christians who were finger-pointing and name-calling and judging the Christians. It was quite interesting. I went on there and basically said that at the end of the day, whether gay marriage gets the green light or not, and whether it is called marriage or not, Christians will STILL believe that God will have justice, and atheists will STILL believe that there is no God. [Some people were all like, "Why do they want it to be called Marriage? Why don't they [ie the gay community] just call it something else and be done with it? Why can't it just be called a civil union? Here, let's give it a name, I'm going to call it JumJums. There you go." (It was quite condescending and offensive and rude - and I don't even know exactly where I stand with this whole issue. I do know respect, though, Jeez.)] I also referred them to the story of Jesus in the bible, when he came across some people who wanted to stone a woman to death because she was a whore. Basically Jesus said, let the first perfect man be the one to throw the first stone - and nobody threw a stone. I can't remember what the link was there to my other point, but it all made sense. A few people liked my comment, and I'll admit, I felt pretty clever, kind of like, "Here guys, there really is no solution to this whole argument, so let's just agree to disagree. Come on, listen to me, I'm the wise one." HAHAHAHAHAHA.

ANYWAY. So since then............................ I've seen many many more photos show up on my newsfeed of Josh and his new wife. Lovely, happy photos, of them kissing and smiling gleefully and ready for eternity together, 'till death do us part' and all that jazz...... and I feel kind of like..... like I can't be as happy for him as I was before I read that controversial post. It's like he's gone, "Hey gay people, YOU can't get married, but I can!!! Look at me, being all happy and shit!! nah nah nah nah nah!!!!! You will never have this!!!! HA! HA! HA!" kind of thing.

Now this newsfeed business isn't going to sway me any further this way or that way, but it does frustrate me that despite his happiness, he's getting on his soapbox and thinking he can just tell other people that their love is wrong!

Oh yeah, I remembered why the Jesus story linked with my other point. It was because I said that the Christians should really be asking themselves if they are showing true Christian love in this issue, and they should be asking themselves, How can I make Jesus more believable? (Because unfortunately, most Christians aren't very good at that. I can TOTALLY see how believing in someone you haven't ever met and can't see seems completely ludicrous, but seriously, it could at LEAST be persuasive if most Christians didn't get all self-righteous and think they were above everybody else - and unfortunately most of them do. Before you judge me - I grew up in various Christian churches, went for a long time, quit 10 years ago, haven't forgotten what I was taught, have met a range of people, Christian and non-Christian, and, as I said in that facebook comment of mine, I have found that everybody is capable of loving and that everybody is in need of love. So there. Lol.)

So yeah.... it's just something that has kind of .... disappointed me and well.... that's that, really.