There used to be a day when we had Polaroid Cameras. We snapped a picture, and out popped a black image framed by white paper that within a few minutes time turned into a picture before our eyes. They were candid shots. There was no delete and do-over, film cost money and you only got a limited amount of film. They were real.
Now we practice selfies. We can take a hundred pictures until we get it right and we practice angles, and we practice lighting, and we watch make-up tutorials, and then we pretend this was a candid shot and that we look this way all of the time. It’s completely fake.
When I was four, my father lifted me into his arms and we went into the den. My mom, my baby brother, and our nanny were sitting in the den and my dad said, “Remember this, you’re watching history.” I sat on the floor as we watched the first man walk on the moon. I don’t know if this is where it started but throughout my entire life I have memorized moments. Pictures can fade but memories are what life is made of.
What if we played with our children and didn’t post about it?
What if we drank coffee and didn’t advertise the fact that we did?
What if our ordinary daily lives were lived not in an underlying need to be seen and thought of as good but just to be who we are?
What if we got real and didn’t protest the opinion of others and instead embraced their right to feel differently?
Would the need for comparison end?
What if we just didn’t participate?
What if we checked out facts before posting our agenda?
Would polite conversations be had face to face?
What if we told the truth?
What if we stopped living to one-up our neighbor?
What if we stopped having wars on social media?
Would we stop having wars in the street?
Pastor Susan 