JONATHAN CLARK, the Bishop of Croydon, is a bit of a Jonny-come-lately to Facebook. But he sees the social network as an encouraging tool when thinking about everyday life...
I'M on Facebook. It's become almost unfashionable to say that – it looks like the resolute non-joiners may soon find themselves at one with the uber-trendy Facebook quitters. But there are still quite a lot of us in the middle who like catching up with friends and family through their comments and photos.
But that's not all that you get appearing on your Facebook page. I always skim past the "sponsored posts" (= adverts), but I do occasionally stop on some of the increasingly bizarre quizzes that now abound.
The latest one to come my way was "Which US State should you live in?" but apparently there isn't a "none of them" category; instead the quiz asks a random set of questions about your life and preferences, then announces that you should in fact be living in … Alaska, or New York, or wherever. I doubt if there's a combination of answers that gets you placed in North Dakota, but maybe one of you can let me know?
What made me stop a little longer, though, was the question that came up as the number of these quizzes multiplied. What is it that makes us want to do them? To pick another example – why do we want a rather simple computer programme to tell us what's the colour of our aura? (Don't ask me – I haven't a clue what it means.) I doubt if any of these quizzes ever make the slightest bit of difference to what people think of themselves, and no-one expects that they would.
It's all a bit of fun, but the reason it is such a compelling game I think is because it connects with something much more serious. All of us need to have a sense of who we are – what's the reason for our existence, what's the purpose of our life.
Many of us find that through faith, others elsewhere. But wherever it comes from, the story we tell of our life is what can give us direction and purpose. If it's a positive story of life and hope, it can enrich our lives and the lives of those around us.
These quizzes keep popping up; every now and again I take a few moments to play one. Rather more seriously, I take time every day to think again about the story of my life, and how I can tell and live it better – it's one of the things I do when I pray. I hope you have a way of doing so too.
