I want to gently observe a few things about the drama that has overwhelmed the twitter community I run in for the last week. Five little bodies lay barely cold next to the trash bin and people have been brawling all over the driveway. So many have been hurt in the fallout.
So I want to address a few things. This kind of environment is a particularly addicting place. We are freed from ourselves in a way that no other place can. Gone are the obvious challenges and worries, looks and health, and economics responsibilities of our daily lives.
Here we are a reflection of what we want to be. Beautiful, witty, exciting, smart, the list goes on. We get to portray ourselves exactly the way we want others to see us. Surprisingly also unmasks our greatest frailties. I am not an exception to this and neither are you.
We are relieved of the responsibility and moderating forces of everyday life and circumstances, and in turn what hurts us most is that which is inside us. We start to believe, in the absence of balancing evidence, that we are everything we wish to be and start to believe
our own fantasy. Before we cast stones, we must look at the ways we feed that beast. As a Christian, I can’t help but think of how Jesus quietly wrote words in the sand to convict the accusers of the woman caught in adultery.
We all need a sand writer in our lives. It was followed by an instruction to learn from it, and to go and not repeat the same transgression.
So as the hoopla dies down, and the feelings subside, remember this: here, for the most part, we are, like it or not, imaginary friends. Our best imaginary self is friends with someone else’s best imaginary self.
But behind all that fun, is a real person, with real challenges with real pain and joy and emptiness and beauty. Someone who is not nearly as strong and perfect and awesome as they portray themselves. But perfectly human and vulnerable.
We need to be careful not to manipulate the emotion of others for our own satisfaction even when we can. We need to be careful not to defend behavior that is indefensible at the expense of good people. We need to be better.
Grace is a complicated thing. It acknowledges wrong, but allows for healing. Now is that time.
Prop, where ever you are, and whatever your circumstance I am praying for you. Thanks for the laughs, and take some time to learn from all this. Only you know the truth. May you feel love and grace and find what you are looking for.
And for the rest of us, there’s this old phrase that’s really been forefront lately: do unto others as you would want them to do unto you. Remember, what is most important about learning the truth, whatever that may be, is how we react to it.
I love you, imaginary people. May we all find what we are looking for in this crazy twitter bar of misfit avatars. ♥️🙏🏻🙌
