Get Off My Flight

A few days, I had to take the unusual step of "Unfriending" someone on Facebook.

I typically just "Unfollow" someone if their posts become inane, rude, or mildly offensive. Or boundary-crossing, where a person has a proclivity of posting an issue that they have with another person they know in real life repetitively online. I typically let the person know that their posts are making me uncomfortable because it starts to seem like they want people to make a choice and render a decision about innocence and guilt, with them being the offended party. Maybe they are, maybe they are not. Maybe it is too complicated to post on FB  and profoundly unhelpful. Most, not all such conflict, is truly black and white, right vs. wrong. We are all-biased in our favor.

It can also be when  a person is overly smarmy about another person and uses FB to communicate the message in a public forum. Save that for non-public communication * i.e. husband  to wife, wife to husband, parent to grown child, etc. Some of that is great; it is just if it is pattern is chronically public. That feels like grandstanding to me...look how great my life it, and often can wound others who hurt others who don't have that reality in relationships.  

The line between Unfriending vs. Unfollowing is crossed when someone has a chronic inability to see how offensive their posts on my page are are to others. I police that. For example, if someone were to write something racist on my wall, they will be Unfriended pronto.

So, the other day a long-time friend for decades posted some link about the dangers of alcohol and how I needed to watch my drinking and quit. Fine, admonish me. Let me look into it and see if it something I need to consider. but do you need to be so public about it? I read the linked article and it wound- up being that 2.5% of some types of cancers are correlated with drinking alcohol. Really pretty insignificant statistically. I have a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and earned all "A's" in doctoral level Stat courses. My Ph.D. is a research degree and not a practitioner-oriented Ed.D. or D.Ed. which most educators in non-college careers hold. Those degrees are fine and valuable but are not as rigorous in terms of research and statistical training.

AN ASIDE: In our era of Trump where he boasts that he knows more than the generals about fighting ISIS, idiocy has been elevated to the highest office in the land. Trump is not stupid but he says and tweets some really stupid things as chum to feed his rowdy and redneck shark True Believers. I actually think it is strategy of his to offend on one-hand (his opponents) and to play to the ignorant and flatter the prejudices of his applauding audience on the other hand. Two birds, one tweet. 

Correlation in statistics in not necessarily causation and the article about alcohol used words such as "may" and the like. So I replied to my friend the seriously minuscule amount of risk that drinking alcohol might create for me. Further, the research noted that it was "two or more." Ten drinks of alcohol in two hours is clearly much more unhealthy than 2. So, this correlational study on the relationship between alcohol and certain type of cancers (typically related to ingestion and digestion) probably skewed to the heavier alcohol consumer. I usually call it a night after 2-3 beers.

A Flight of Beers (what I was drinking on vacay) is typically smaller glasses of what the craft brewery has on tap and it usual adds up to two beers (2 Pints). I am totally legal at two pints. A cop once pulled me over and ran me through all of the DUI public-shaming guilty until proven innocent field manual. I was at 1/10th of legal limit. He then admonished me at the end of the charade  parade to just "not drink and drive at all." I was like, "Until it is illegal for me to drink and drive AT ALL, mind your business Mr. Policeman." 

Well, my buddy online continued his public-rant about alcohol on my FB page. He posted that the Beer Theology event coming up on Thursday (a discussion-based forum for Christians and Non-Christians) was, in composition, comprised of "Phonies."  I was like, "WHOA dude, back-off. Not appropriate."  Unfriended.  Post your opinions to your own wall, not mine.

I don't know, maybe he had an alcoholic as a parent. As sad as that is, I am sorry, that's not my issue. I try to be sensitive about my posts and think about how those who may be or have been problem-drinkers and alcoholics get affected by my posts. BUT, drinking beer is not unbiblical. I am not going to be shamed by the Galatians-like Judaizer legalists who had a beef with pork. Paul called them out, including Peter previously, publicly. Drinking alcohol is not the same thing are being drunk. Simple thinkers go to either extreme on alcohol and a million other things like "Most Muslims are murderers, etc."  Shoot, the greatest health issue in America by far is obesity. There go all my food posts. too. Legalism always move on  to the next battle and pretty soon were are living on a line of rules for righteousness rather than relying on Christ.

If someone finds my posts about craft beer offensive and tempting, Unfollow me, even Unfriend me. I am sure some have.

I was on vacation and enjoying a couple of beers after working-out. If that is wrong, as the cliche goes, I don't want to be right. Life is pretty hard. Trials are many and joys can be few. Those things ebb and flow like waves. Sometimes sunshine and a lovely breeze, sometimes the gale-storm tides of adversity knock-us down and kick the crap out of us. I have also had my share of both triumphs and trials, a decent amount of the hard times the result of self-churning. So, drinking a beer with a buddy is the least of my problems and one of my bigger joys.

I have stopped overlooking the everyday joys of life, as if they are par for the course. No. count them. For that is what life consists of more often than not.