Forming Identity: Image + Avatars

John Dyer has a great post worth a read over at Don’t Eat the Fruit: Being Conformed into the Avatar of Christ: Social Networks & Identify Formation

A snippet:

I believe that any tool, whether we use it for good or bad, right or wrong, truthfully or untruthfully, shapes the way we look at the world. Just as a photographer sees the world in pictures and a stockbroker sees the world in business transactions, we all see the world through whatever we use most. A wise man once said, “We become what we behold.”

His conclusion:

So, come, be my friend on facebook, twitter, and the rest [links removed], but let us not behold the images we post and the words we write, but less us behold Jesus Christ, who is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15 ; Heb. 1:3 ) and the very Word of God (John 1:1 ), and let us not anchor our identity in the things posted about us online, but on the fact that God has called us “friend” and “sons and daughters.”

We become what we behold. Or put another way: beholding is becoming (2 Cor. 3:18).