Ahh, Facebook, you sly devil, you. I thinks you've gone and done it again. You've changed things on me, just when I least expect and just when I thought I was beginning to settle into the new from the last time you upset my ol' apple cart. I got a message and a friend request from someone way back in the old Baptist days of my youth. He liked my "Liberal and Damn Proud of It" views on my page and took solace in the fact that we were a minority in our parts….Hmmm. I figured most people didn't look that far into the About/Info page. (I do, however, when I look at other's pages….I'm curious that way.) And so since I've changed my single status to what Facebook will not let me communicate ("in a relationship with" ME) that line is blank. But why now a week later are my political views popping up to the top of my page?! My "single" status was not up there previously in this new format….

Am I ashamed of my views? Certainly and obviously not! No abashedness here. But, as we are further sliding down that slippery slope of yet another contentious political season, I'm taking the "Damn Proud of It" out of it. One, it's "in your face." And, I'm changing in ways that I don't need to and kinda don't want to be "in your face." If I'm secure in myself, then I don't need to be in anyone's face. And then, it also appears a bit contentious.

The end story for me is that I hold my views dear. I have journeyed arduously through my work as a journalist and through my personal spiritual pilgrimage to place where I have landed and that's a space that opened up to me through my experiences a quarter of a century ago…my quarterlife crisis. I'm now in my half-life…fruit basket turnover. But the most important place that I wish to be is to know the truth, for me–that we are all One. As per Nonviolent Communication, we just have different strategies.

So, yeah, I'm liberal and I'll own it. I am proud to be who I am but who I am is no better than who you are, regardless of your religious or political views. And though my Ego tries to win, I know that Compassion wins. And when I have compassion for You AND compassion for Myself, then I respect at least the very right of you to hold your own views, whatever they may be and whether or not I personally agree.

Liberal? Yes. Proud? Yes. But, no longer "in your Face."

P.P.S: I think that Facebook is ratcheting up the rhetoric. My religious views, on my profile, were the next in line after my relationship status. So, they've decided that if a person's marital status is blank that political views will come next. Unless we leave it blank, it will come up to our mini about section. Or, I'm crazy for never noticing that it's been there all along (since the new design debut,) but I could swear….Facebook, you're the kissing cousin of Big Brother, aren't you?

P.P.P.S: By the time I decided to publish this on the blog–as I'm always but not always publishing immediately–the political status was gone. I decided to share my evolution here anyway.

Your thoughts?