Incorrigible Internet Intercessions

Just received my 10th electronic prayer this week! That's about average I'd say. You know the one's I mean; a nice, sappy greeting about how blessed we all are, followed by some lengthy "Hallmark" prose and then maybe some pictures of bunnies or fawns or sunsets.

I know that there are good Christians sending these out with very good intentions, but really, it's getting out of hand.

Other than adding significantly to the growing pile of spam in my inbox, probably the most annoying aspect of them is the inevitable demand that the message be passed along to 12 more friends or not only will they miss out on the web blessings (can I live with that guilt?), but I'm most likely going to bring a plague of viruses to my own hard-drive also. (Just in case, I've smeared lamb's blood all over my Dell! Messy....very messy.)

Oh yes, and I absolutely must return the message to the sender. The point here being that they need some kind of affirmation that I'm really not a Heathen, and that their mailbox can then become just as bound-up as the recipient's.

From the religious point of view, can we trust a blessing coming to us via the web? Impersonal, to be sure, but also it's the idea that firewalls all over the world are clogged with these little blessed electrons just idling in our cache's, doing no good whatsoever, like a communion wafer that's accidentally dropped on the floor, it has become tainted.

The internet is a wonderful thing. But it is also abused by many bad and just plain useless things. We make prayer useless when we trivialize it by forwarding it in these electronic mass-mailings. If one truly believes in "intercession" than I urge everyone to resist this. Instead, go to your Church, kneel in your pew or at the alter, and pass blessings to as many as your friends as you want over the universe-wide web. God doesn't need a broad-band or high speed anything!

I guess that there are worse things on the internet to worry about than a bunch of prayers. Some would probably argue that this is just what a filthy web needs anyway; more sanitizing agents like these. But what an abuse of such an awesome gift.