Silence and mourning

This year I have been really struck by the idea that on Friday night Jesus' disciples, his friends, his family watched him die.  They didn't know what was happening, they didn't know that their Lord was coming back. Unlike modern Christians Saturday wasn't a day of waiting. It was a day of silence, a day of grief and of mourning. 

For many modern Christians Saturday is the day of preparation. A day of preparation for a celebration. We spend the day grocery shopping, coloring eggs and preparing a banquet. 

But Jesus' followers, his friends spent Saturday in hiding. They spent Saturday in mourning. They did not know. They were not able to say that tonight we mourn and tomorrow we rejoice.

We get the privilege and honor to know that on Sunday we rejoice. On Sunday we proclaim the good news. They got the privilege and honor of knowing Jesus in the flesh. 

Today I will mourn.

Tomorrow I will celebrate, but today I grieve.  

Social Media

I use Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. 

I check each of them multiple times daily. I check to see what my friends (both real and online) are up to. 

I look at the highlight reel of their days. The funny tidbits, the recipes, the videos that they share. 

I post things too. And I am sure I do what everyone else does and thinks about their audience before they post. 

They think about how their grandma follows them on Facebook, so they post the dirty joke on Twitter. They think about what others will think, how others will react to the snipbit that they decide to share online.

I do the same thing. A Lot. Things I normally would post only to Twitter (the place I put my brain vomit) I put on Facebook because the boy I like is on Facebook and might see it (if he bothers to read Facebook and Facebook decides I am worthy of his news feed).

Stuff I don't want my mom or family to see goes on Twitter because it is not ok to be brutally honest. 

It's all so dumb. It's such a dumb way to hide who we are. A dumb way to only show our highlight reel. A dumb way to keep up with those around us. 

Social media has allowed me, has made it "ok" for me to go almost 3 years without talking to my college roommate because we are both getting each other's highlight reel online. 

It's not the internet's fault. 

It's my fault, it's your fault, it's our collective fault that we have allowed technology to fill this space in our lives. 

That we have taken this thing that could be used for such good. These tools for reaching out to each other havebecome blockades to each other. They create walls instead of bridges. They build up (by our doing) piece after piece of fake facade. That we are funny, that we are happy, that we travel all the time, love our jobs, know the perfect recipes and have these great families that love each other. 

They very rarely are a true door or window into our lives. Running late for work, forgetting to take out the trash, dirty dishes in the sink, dancing in the living room, crying on the bathroom floor. 

Those moments that make us wholly real, wholly human, wholly lovable.