I just feel like a lot of Catholics need to hear this. No particular reason why. Really. It’s nothing personal. I mean, I’m sure none of you need to hear this. But seriously. Watch it. Please.
If you were especially touched by this video or convicted by something in it, God bless you. If you are still struggling with the email forwarding lifestyle, there is hope. It’s called social media. Make a Facebook profile. Next time you’re tempted to forward an email to a large sub-section of your contact list, stop yourself. God always gives us the strength and grace to do what is right. We just have to ask for it and accept it.
Post it on Facebook instead. Eventually you can break loose from the vicious cycle of email forwarding. It is possible. For the love of God (and all of our inboxes), break the chain.
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Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mark. I get so many chain, motivational, and joke email Fwds every day that by evening by eyes are bleeding. I hope Facebook and Twitter see huge upticks after your post here.
Friends don’t let friends Fwd emails.
Actually, I see far less of it then I did 5 years ago. Perhaps because of MySpace, Facebook, Google+ etc. Know what I hate? All the game requests in Facebook and the DM spam @ Twitter. E-mail and text are incredible control systems for messages and interaction.
Sorry, I meant to address my comment to Matthew above. Please Fwd. (:
If I get a chain letter that says you will be blessed in a certain way if you pass this Novena on to 5 people….AND… I like the prayer, I will erase the part about sending it to 5 people. Nothing wrong with sending a prayer on to your friends. I also like jokes, brightens up my day…and I like points of interest from all over the world. I DO NOT LIKE political bashing or anything political and I do not like any kind of chain letter. Also I have asked friends to delete previous addresses including mine, to no avail.
My husband and I have actually set up our e-mail so that certain acquaintances’ e-mails go straight to the junk mail folder… a quick perusal of that folder before I delete them en masse makes sure that I don’t accidently delete something that is not FW’ed. This has saved a lot of time. My personal pet peeve are the “warning/safety” type emails that no one has bothered vetting for credibility before forwarding. I used to email back the appropriate Snopes article debunking the latest warning, but I’ve since given that up as it was a wasted effort.
Of course ...he left many stupid email fwd but the MOST stupid was the one explaining how “AIDS” was contracted from gas pump handles… which is why the government made us switch to “self-serve”
as a former IT director we saw so many dumb things…email fwd was actually low on the list of stupidity.
I have noticed a decrease in the number of these kinds of e-mails over the past few years. I’m ambivalent about it. I kind of like a lot of the inspirational stories or power points that have come my way. Agreed, I never forward a chain letter - it dies on my watch.
But, I really hate Facebook. I find it a colossal, shallow, self-centered waste of time. If that’s where the stuff has been going, that would explain why I’ve missed it - even though I do have a facebook account.
What I don’t hear people saying these days about chain letters- even prayers- that promise magic results if you send them to so many people, is that they are superstitions and sins against the First Commandment. Pre-Vatican II, I was raised that they were right up there with fortune tellers and the lot, forbidden to Catholics and wrong.
I never forward a chain e-mail. Oddly enough, I only receive about one a year. I guess that old adage works in reverse as well: What doesn’t go around doesn’t come around.
I think I’m gay!
What I hate more than forwards are the emails you receive that haven’t been cleaned up! What’s up with that?
Great post Matt… I’ll be forwarding it to everyone in my contacts list.. but I’ll have to add, “If you don’t forward this to 10 people in the next 10 minutes you’ll have 10 years of bad luck!”
Thank you for that message it makes more sense when you said this then when my dad tried explaining it. GOD BLESS ALL
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