Oggled by the World | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Oggled by the World | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
04/14/14
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Oggled by the world

I decided to search for myself today. Call it ego. Call it curiosity. Call it what you may. What could it hurt to spend one hour on the computer finding out what the world thought about me. All I had to do was to type in my name.

It appears the world thinks more of me and less of me than I might hope.

In Australia I’m known as an author who is developing a significant readership. In England I’m known as a grandmaster in chess who is ready to take on the world. In Wales I’m the hero of a series of novels in my existence as the supreme detective in a world of supreme detectives. In South Africa I am the ultimate rugby star for my team of surging athletes. In the United States I broke several of my college basketball records by scoring over 100 points in back to back games. In Venezuela, I’m running a gas and oil company and trying to balance the needs of the economy with ecology.

My search shows the broad diversity of my efforts in chemistry, astrophysics, sports and the economy. In other phases of my identity I’m even a low level politician, a pastor, a professor, a police sergeant, and a drill instructor in the marines.

An hour after my search I got a phone call from a former student. It’s been twenty years since we said goodbye.
“How did you find me?” I asked.

“I googled you,” said Jennifer.

“Googled me? How in the world did you find me with all the others who have my name?”

“Simple. I know enough about you to put in the prompts for the search engine. I found you on Facebook. I saw you tagged on pictures from my friends. I’ve been following you for years. I just realized it was your birthday and I remembered all the things you did to make my birthday special when I was your student.”

The conversation was soul-warming. I still have this bi-polar relationship with technology. On the one hand it’s depressing to think every con artist and criminal and police agency and solicitor could track me down so easy. On the other hand it’s exhilarating to know I could reconnect with special people I’ve long lost contact with.

I can tell from my placement in the google listings that there aren’t a lot of people out there searching for me. Despite Jennifer’s special greetings, by evening I was sitting alone with a cupcake I had purchased for myself. I couldn’t even find a candle to put in it. I really wasn’t that hungry.

I saw my Bible lying open at the other end of the table. Images of the five children who had once shared devotions and meals with me bubbled to life. A spouse who had loved me well - before the accident took the entire family in one blow. A church who had surrounded me just five years ago.

My mind wrestled with wondering what would happen if I just tried to delete every reference to myself on line. Would anyone try more than google to find me? Would it matter that I’d invested in so many lives? Would it matter that I lived with such pain and confusion every day. Would it matter that I’d held onto my faith despite the soul screams to run, the body pains to rebel, the mind demands to erase it all.

“Who am I?” I said out loud. I got up and walked the four feet to where the book was resting.

Revelation two was open. The words were usually a blur. But on this important day I wanted to make one last effort before my head hit the pillow.

The focus was on churches who were still being put on public display for who they were. People in those churches were being remembered. “Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels.”

I’d been permanently found by the greatest search engine in the universe. I would never be deleted or forgotten. The timing for this text was heart-grabbing. I actually smiled.

“I love you, too!” I whispered.

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