It’s been a busy week on the Café Facebook page, which has become very good about showing our posts in people’s streams. One person on Twitter asked if we could start cross-posting comments from Facebook, and while it’s a noble thought, it’s not really possible at this time.
It’s interesting to note that we have almost as many fans on Facebook as we do followers on Twitter, and if we were to do a serious cull of coffeeshops that follow us because we have “Café” in our name, we’d probably reverse the ratio. On Twitter this week, popular stories for retweeting have included Bishops lobby Congress on social justice, Prayers to end hateful rhetoric, and Church bans Pepsi products (the comments are definitely worth revisiting on that one, as well–same for the Facebook comments on it).
On Facebook, the item on Karen Armstrong in the Wall Street Journal drew praise for illustrating the mystery of God, while creating a bit of debate over whether Dawkins could really contribute to theological debate. Then Jay Baldwin weighed in:
Dawkins is a voice, used by God. That shouldn’t be a surprise, given God’s repeated ironic approaches to trying to get through to us dense human creations. That doesn’t make Dawkins a prophet or anything. God used lots of morons over the millennia. Morons occasionally make good points, by accident or by providence. Sometimes we’re so stupid that only a moron can make a credible point that we can hear.
Rules of Dis-Engagement got a lot of traction both in comments here and on Facebook. Facebook readers included Joe DuRant, whose family’s roots in South Carolina go all the way back to the 17th century. He noted, given other political developments with a certain Congressman this week, “You would think that you would get to used to this sort of thing, but SC seems to be a never ending source of embarrassment.”
The most popular story on the Lead’s Facebook page this week was that of Garrison Keillor’s “brush with mortality”, generating 8 comments and 12 “likes,” including this gem from Donna St. John:
How wonderful of Garrison to share this with us! As a nurse for 35 yrs. I appreciate his gratitude for those of us who try to provide the sunny smile, gentle touch, explanations and the understanding that every patient hopes for when he comes (feeling helpless and defenseless) into that “other world”, that we call, “the hospital”.
That would go a long way toward health care reform, right there!
Many prayers ascended on Facebook for Bishop Marc Andrus upon his announcement that he was undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. Most were on his page, and coming from the 1,800+ people he’s connected with on that platform.