The Face In the Moon I think I’ve figured out where Mr. Hyde lives. He is the shadowy face in the moon and still up to mischief. Now he sends emails. “Don’t even open them. Send them to spam.” That was my advice today to a good friend who complained that another ‘holy’ one was repeatedly demanding that she prove her faith. At the end of each day, I hold the delete button on my keyboard down and drag the cursor over at least fifty forwarded emails, lifting the cursor only occasionally to save a ‘good’ one for later reading. I learned long ago which friends and acquaintances will send ‘good’ forwards that make me smile, share a ‘keeper’ recipe, information useful to me as a writer, or take me on a journey to some awesome place that I would never get to see otherwise. Their emails are reflections of their personalities and the way they live their lives… uplifting and filled with spirit and optimism. When someone actually takes the time to type out a personal message or a bit of conversation, I am reminded of the post cards from my grandmother that could bring me up to date on a week’s events inside a four by six inch square. Such personal messages today are like tiny treasure chests floating in a sea of ‘forwards’. Buried among the unopened deleted messages are multitudes of ‘spiritual’ messages with ultimatums at the end saying that I must prove my Christianity by forwarding to a certain number of people. No one has yet to tell me where in the scriptures it says that in the year 2008, these e-mailer forwarders will become my judge and I must prove myself to them and by email at that! Unless I overlooked an email warning in Revelations, I think it must be a messianic personality who believes the rest of the world must prove its faith to them. Such emails are offensive and I hope you don’t feel guilty or obligated to pass them on because of their inspirational nature. You won’t be eaten by a pride of lions if you don’t. I swear it. I’m amazed at the number of people who think of themselves as thoughtful, considerate, and caring but do not bat an eye before passing along baseless rumors or vicious lies from behind the anonymity of their monitor screens. Most of these rumor mongers would never engage in such activity if they knew they would meet their accused face to face. But it’s okay to blindly spread rumors as long as they’re sitting safely and smugly behind a monitor screen. Like the shadowy man in the moon. Like Mr. Hyde. It hasn’t escaped me that the most outrageous claims are usually from the same people who check up on my Christianity. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around that one. There are several internet sites dedicated to sorting through internet rumors. Snopes.com and UrbanLegends are reliable sites that specialize in researching the origins of internet rumors and reporting elements of truth. There’s so much more I want to say about these irritating ‘forwards’, but this little rant will have to suffice for now. It’s getting late and I have to wade through over fifty emails. Copyright 2008 Patricia Paris Contact: PatriciaParis@gmail.com Patricia Paris is an author/columnist from East Tennessee
Member: Tennessee Mountain Writers, Int'l Women Writers Association, Tennessee Writers Alliance, Chattanooga Writers Guild | 
