Jesus Does he Use the Internet?

Long time readers of this blog will know that I do not take this whole blogging thing very seriously. As far as I know I am the only blogging knitting clown. Although I am working on changing that. Still, I have some across some grumpiness out there in the Blogosphere {wow using words like that makes me sound like I know what I am doing}. The most recent round of grumpiness was in relation the ring surf rings. I do appear to have my fair share of these posted on the side bar of my blog. Recently I started poking around and discovered that nearly half of them do not list my blog. I also joked that I have been refused entry into the knitting Stephanies because of an unmentioned gender bias.

Firstly the owner of the knitting Stephanies invited me to join there ring. I did and it took them less than 24 hours to get me listed in their ring. In my defense my given name is that male version of Stephanie. And since knitting is woman’s world I am just a male trying to get around in it.

I decided a couple months ago to not let my gender hinder me in knitting. I had been trying to get a gig teaching at a yarn store. I have come to believe that I have been turned down at least a couple times because I am male. I have applied at many stores and only have hard evidence that someone lied to me at one of these stores. I shrugged this off and figured this was a little pay back for men running the word for the last several thousand years. Until recently I complete gave up on the idea figuring it was just a woman’s domain. Well if it silly for a woman to give up on something because it is a man’s world than it is even more silly for me to give up on something when men rule 90 percent of the planet. So that search continues.

Oh and by the way I have been invited to teach a class at the Knitting and Crochet Convention at the Crown Point Plaza in February. I am the one teaching the children’s class. Remember we must brainwash them while they are young.

Anyway back to my original premise. I have come to the conclusion that the ring surf rings that have a really long cue that has not change in two months are no longer being managed. By the way if you are with the Ukitted Nation or a ring surf ring you no longer have time to manage I would be happy to help. I have free time and like doing that sort of thing. If you remember I started my own ring surf ring for Clown Knitters. And since the Judy Scarf I have decided that a Clown Knitter or CK {wow a new abbreviation} is anyone that knits on a clown item and not necessarily someone that wear a lot of make up. So if you have knit on Judy feel free to join the Clown Knitters Ring.

Anyway moving along back to the whole grumpiness on the Rings. Now before I go into this I would like to first state that when I have been talking about grumpiness I cannot be sure the other person is grumpy. In the real world you look at them and you can tell if they have a harsh tone in the voice. The only way you can tell on the web is if you use rude words or a lack of nice words. Sometimes that lack of nice words like please, Thank You and the like simply means the person is very efficient in the speech patterns

I myself have very odd speech patterns that have led to confusion on occasion. Normally I just continue to talk to that person and what ever situation there was gets resolved. That is why I find it necessary to be long winded on this blog. If I explain things in greater detail there is less of a chance of things being misunderstood.

A couple entries ago I noted that I had not been accepted into the Christian Knitters. The leader of this ring recently posted a message on this blog. They say that they emailed me. I apparently did not get that email. I will say that I have been using the free yahoo email until recently. I found that I once and while lost an email. And when I switched to a new DSL provider I go the upgrade for pay yahoo for free. It has been much better since them.

Anyway this was her post:

I emailed you about Christian Knitters but you have not responded... I am the owner...Read the rules about becoming a member of the ring....

Now if I were the sensitive type {Because we know all clowns are sad on the inside. Just ask Smokey Robinson.} I might think this person was being rude to me. Well I will admit to not responding to her email. I don’t think I got it. So even if I did get it I don’t remember it. My forgetting something is also not outside the realm of possibility. The only things I am certain to remember are feeding pets and where I have left children.

So I took her up on her suggestion. I went back and read the rules again just to make sure there was not a no clown rule.

These are the rules:

· You must be a Born-Again Christian. Jesus said "You must be born-again." John 3:7Your blog must state somewhere about your love for Jesus Christ(can be in your profile) If you don't understand Born-Again, please email me
· No objectionable links or buttons on your blog.
· You must be a knitter. Your site doesn't have to be totally devoted to knitting but there must be some evidence that you are a knitter.
· Ring code must be displayed on your front page in the sidebar so the ring won't be broken.
· No stores will be allowed anymore.
· Pray for the other members.

First thing first….

I am not a store.
I am knitter.
The Ring Code is displayed.
There are no objectionable links.

That leaves me with two of the rules that could be considered a bit unclear. First is praying for the other ring members. As part of praying, I pray for suffering people in general and the salvation of the world in general. To the best of my knowledge there is no email prayer list with this ring. If there was I would add it to my prayer times. As a matter of fact I think that is a good idea. Even if I am not allowed to be a Christian Knitter I am going to add prayer requests to my blog. And If I am allowed and she needs someone to help run an email prayer chain I have done it before and am willing to it again.

The last is stating that you are a born again Christian. Well I have talked about my church a great deal in this blog. It is large part of my life. In my church all of our Soldiers {Deacons} of which I am one are born again Christian. Perhaps this is one of those things that did not get explicitly mentioned or if I did mention it came up in one of over two hundred and fifty entries. I have a hard time believing that if you have read this blog enough you do not get that impression. Still I am going to added it explicitly to my profile so there is no longer a question.

Just to finish up I did go through the list on the Christian Knitters. Firstly with few exceptions the ring code is displayed well on most of the blogs. This is the sign of a well maintain ring. Many rings have breaks because the owner does not look through them once and while.

Still, looking through the blogs there are a few that do not appear to mention God, Jesus or any type of Bible Stuff. There are even a few that I would not let a child read and suggest to me that they have objectionable material.

All an all we need to be clear on the internet to avoid misunderstandings.

Thing brings me to some final thoughts. What is the internet’s role in religion. My church has as extensive website that links to many of our programs. We have a Corps finder so you can figure out where the closest Corps is to you when you are on the road. This by the way is the feature I use most on our website, www.salvationarmy.org.

So there are all of the obvious PR uses for the internet and the Church. This could be a tool for evangelism. The thing that would be nice to see more of would be internet prayer rings. In an individual church you have the opportunity to pray with you congregation. On the internet you could pray with hundreds maybe thousands of people.

We be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.