i just listened to a radio piece about a radio dj and his request-driven show. the dj has been in the business for quite some time, and over the years has noticed some interesting trends. most of the radio requests he gets have something to do with the requesters' romantic lives. songs are dedicated to crushes, heart-breakers, exes, lovers, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, and wives. other loved ones are often serenaded as well: the dj shared a story in which a five-year-old called in with his mother to dedicate a song to his incarcerated father. it was the first time the father had heard his child speak. after his sentence had completed, the father reunited with his family and they called the radio show together to thank the dj for the connection.

the dj shared that his callers would often break down into tears while requesting their songs, admitting things they never would admit to anyone they knew and explaining secrets they'd kept from everyone close to them. one woman, for example, confessed that she had cheated on her boyfriend and was hoping that the airing of a certain song would help bring the two back together.

listening to this radio piece reminded me of this website that i check once a week called postsecret (should be the first hit if you google it). i've mentioned the site before, but in case you forgot what it was or never knew, it's a site that scans and posts hand-made postcards mailed in by readers that each contain an anonymous confession of a secret. the confessions range from things like "for the first time in my life, i finally feel loved" to "i enjoy peeling the protective plastic covers off new electronics" to "i began cutting again when you said those things to me". once i read a postcard containing an anonymous confession to the untried murder of a man who had sexually abused the writer when s/he was young. many others confess the circumstances and contemplation leading to suicide attempts. in all of them there is the startling honesty the radio dj spoke about, a radical revealing of the heart.

somehow, the anonymity of a radio show phone call and the blogosphere enable people to cut through the underbrush of social normalcy and facebook community. the honesty beneath is earthy, real. and it is deeper than the honesty of complaint, the supposedly counter-cultural attempt to bring "realness" back into the world by simply saying whatever you want. the kind of honesty i found on the radio and on the website speaks of a person, not just a feeling. and that is what makes it possible.

the people pouring out their hearts on the radio and in homemade postcards aren't just confessing a feeling or a secret - they're presenting themselves as whole people who are remarkably un-whole and utterly broken. the anonymity makes this possible, because the face and name we want to attach to their words would only obscure our sight of the person behind them. we have become such a visual, information-loving culture. but we've replaced pictures and data for understanding and solidarity. is it really such a surprise, then, that the second life of facebook is so shallow, that it is filled with activities, gadgets, boxes, and mini-apps to help pass the time and convince us that we are, in fact, making a real connection with another person? that is not to say that facebook and other such networking tools are bad things. i use them myself. but they don't quite provide the genuine community that we need.

these days, you can be anything you want to be. and so names and photos have lost a dimension of their revelatory power, often obscuring rather than revealing. if we are to love this world, as children of light, we must reclaim our vision of the person behind the words and the pictures. as people who have seen truth and light, who know the Christ and have come to see things as they truly are, we must regain the ability to look past the facebook status and the away message and see the person standing behind them, to see their heart beating and bare our own so that they might beat together in solidarity. how can we love this world when we do not know this world? when we do not let its people in? when we do not ourselves push beyond the superficiality of our well-defined networks with their rules of propriety and begin listening for a heartbeat? we have souls to win and hearts to feed, not just weekend plans to change and facebook statuses to substitute. this world is aching for love, truth, and space for honesty, and it has been forced to resort to anonymous call-in radio shows and websites for places where it feels safe.

my own vision is so clouded. it has become foggy with materialism and comfort - which i love dearly. i love distance, i love strength, i love simplicity. i hate intimacy. i hate caring. i hate thinking beyond myself and my plans for today. but my God, my God, has a different plan for today:

"today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
on the day of testing in the wilderness,
where your fathers put Me to the test
and saw My works for forty years.
therefore I was provoked with that generation,and said, 'they always go astray in their heart;
they have not known My ways.'
as i swore in My wrath,
'they shall not enter My rest.'"

take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. but exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

-hebrews 3:7-13

Lord, help me repent so i can see. Lord, forgive me that i might see.