7 Social Media Takes

It’s a hot, gray Friday, so that must mean Takes.
One
By hot I mean 40 degrees F. Everyone is lying around in a stupor. We’re supposed to still be frozen, not languid with heat. But also, the sky is burdened with gray clouds, oppressively so. Maybe it’s the apocalypse, or maybe it’s just Friday.

Two
The children have been arguing about what to give up for lent. One said he would not touch his iPod, except to listen to books. Another said she would give up school, hahahaha, and speaking in English.
‘What will you speak in then,’ asked another child.
‘Latin,’ she said.
‘You don’t speak Latin,’ he sensibly pointed out, ‘so I guess you just won’t speak then, will you.’
And so the long day wore on.

Three
One thing I feel in my spirit is a deep desire not to comment on the news of the day all the time, for Lent, cough. I mean, in general, I do like to leap in and say things–some of the things or all of the things–but as I watched the news about the shootng in Florida unfold, I thought, ‘What on earth would be the use of me commenting? Do I even have anything to say?’ Then I thought, well, I do have things to say, but I don’t think it would be useful to say them publicly, even in a desperate effort to beat the new Facebook algorithms. Will I use this horror for clicks? Will I leap up and get more Facebook and twitter followers? Or am I cowardly for not wanting to weigh in?

All these questions swirled around, as it happened, on Ash Wednesday itself, as I slumped in my pew and listened to the gospel. ‘Do not do your acts of righteousness before men,’ said Jesus. But then the preacher reminded us all that a few verses later Jesus would say, ‘Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.’ I felt that twitter’s head would probably explode if Jesus ever got an account. Which is it? Should I be public or private? Should I be seen or unseen?

Exploding heads aside, though, it isn’t technically that hard to figure out how to sensibly engage, it’s just that you do have to think, case by case, moment by moment. And thinking can be a weariness to the flesh. Jesus doesn’t want me to rush onto social media, or this blog, to glorify myself. He wants me to glorify him, which is harder. I would have to think about it, over and over, and then some more. I would constantly have to be considering my motives, and sometimes I just don’t want to. I just want clicks.

Four
I mean, maybe it would be worth asking, is it even possible to glorify God on the internet? To tweet for the glory of God? How would one do it? How would one go back and forth between public and private, between cowardice and bravery, between sensation and truth over and over, and then again?

Five
One thing that troubled me, and always does, is that whenever there’s a shooting, one side and the other both assume the evil intentions of the other side. Leftists jump into the fray with the basic assumption that those on the right love their guns more than their children. Those on the right jump in believing that those on the Left want a totalitarian state and won’t be happy until they get one.

With each shooting the shouting gets louder and more angry. It’s true, people are dying. We should stop shooting each other. Someone should do something! But the helplessness and horror that those on the left feel is the same helplessness and horror that I feel about abortion.* I am so appalled that year after year congress can’t just defund planned parenthood. Setting aside the higher good of abolishing this hideous sacrament, why can’t they just defund it? But they can’t. And I think they can’t because the American soul doesn’t really want them them to. Something about our corporate person is daily on display between congress and the White House and the ballot box.

This being so, I don’t think we, any of us, should be angry. I think we should sit in the dark helplessness of repentance and fear.

I mean, don’t you think that violence is the state of ourselves? You can’t kill the number of babies that are killed here every day and hour and not have the violence spill over to people you can see, who have been given names, who have Facebook and twitter accounts that outlive them.

Six
I should just say though, that this is just me. Matt is enjoying his own gun control thread enormously. He is pro guns, and all of my friends and relations are vociferously against them. The point of this entire post has been to virtue signal to the right and the left at the same time, which I obviously failed to do by bringing up abortion. For me, I can’t win, because not everyone on the internet is going to like me at the end of each and every day. Matt, on the other hand, wins by making everybody angry with him. Maybe I just need to rethink my goals. Then I could probably win. And winning, obviously, would bring the most glory to God. That’s why Jesus died on the cross, for all the awesome winning.

Seven
Anyway, go read more and better takes that are about real things and not about the Internet. And have a nice day if you feel like it. If you don’t, don’t blame me. But whether you have a good day or not, sign up for my email list, which I think is available somewhere in the vicinity of this blog, because it helps me beat the new algorithms. Which is obvious Extremely Important for the good of all personkind.

*Which doesn’t mean, of course, that I don’t feel helplessness and horror over mass shootings. I probably need to say this or you will think I am morally evil. Sigh.