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Saturday, December 30, 2006

Should I be Person of the Year?

Time has named "you*," the computer user, as the person of the year. The subhead of the cover story says "In 2006, the World Wide Web became a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter." That would be me, I guess, and probably you, too.

*This link to this specific story may not last long.

OK. Besides this blog, we have an active Flickr account. I have a web page, or pages. I have contributed a little content to the Wikipedia, and reviewed a book or two for Amazon. I have sold items on eBay. I have an account with Project Gutenberg, and am set up to begin to join the many proofreaders. I guess that qualifies me, even though I haven't uploaded any videos to YouTube, and I don't have a MySpace account (and don't plan to do either anytime soon). You probably do all these things, and more, making your "small contributions," too.

But Person of the Year? Well, that's Time's judgment, not mine. Somehow, what I do seems pretty ordinary. How about the framers of the Constitution of the US, who put in free speech? How about those who made it possible to use glass, harnessed electricity, found out about semiconductors, discovered quantum physics, and wrote computer languages? Aren't they the ones who really deserve this?

Have my "small contributions" really done anybody, even me, any good? They keep me occupied, my wife says. Perhaps I have uplifted someone, or informed them, or even reflected Christ in some small contribution way. I hope so.

I read much of the Time article and sidebars on-line. Later, I saw the magazine, next to the checkout line of our local grocery. It has a mirror on the cover. I picked up the periodical, and looked into the mirror. It was a cheap mirror. I suppose that was me reflected, but not very well. As Paul said, "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known." (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV) Fuzzy as I am, and ordinary as I am, I don't deserve to be person of the year. Sorry, neither do you. Only one Person does -- Jesus Christ, the eternal Lord and Savior of the world, the one who reflects God perfectly.

Thanks for reading.

2 comments:

Every Square Inch said...

Martin

The insights you share are part of what God has placed into you. Your heart is Christ centric and there can never be too much of that in the blogosphere.

Keep blogging and have a happy new year.

Martin LaBar said...

Thanks for reading, andre!

Best of New Year's to you.