Initially, in the earliest moments after the recent murders in France, I changed my Facebook picture using the app that Facebook made so readily available that allowed me to use my profile picture with a French flag filter covering it.
Not even 8 hours later, I changed my mind, deleted the picture, and have no intention of utilizing it again. I'm also avoiding those hashtags like #prayforparis that seem to be making rounds online.
Here's why.
It's not because I don't care. It's not because I don't share in the shock and sadness.
In fact, it's precisely because I do care, I do share in the sadness, that I changed my mind. Changing my photo or typing out a few characters on social media minimizes (maybe even cheapens) that sadness and grief. The world has known horror and terror for quite some time -- the past few hundred years that have named "the modern world", in truth -- so there's little reason to think that attacks in New York or London or Paris are unique. Out of suffering usually arises some trendy way to process that suffering without getting busy doing the hard work of creating peace.
Why change my photo? To show solidarity? With whom? "The monsters" out there, committing acts like those in Paris, are the same "monsters" deep inside our own murderous hearts. What does it even mean to change a picture online as an act of solidarity?
I'm not trying to be provocative here. I'm only asking what it means to allow a gimmick that's supposed to demonstrate how "clued in" and "with it" we are in the world to say more than what it really says -- that my friends see me as someone who cares.
Those who are my friends, though, know where I stand on violence and making peace. They know that I believe the petty lines we draw on our maps and globes are rather random and fluid, and therefore have more to say about our need to separate humans into camps -- particularly "us" and "them" -- than they are anything real. They know that the victims in Paris are in my prayers, as are my enemies.
I don't need to broadcast this to the world, especially if I'm not willing to take the trouble to change the way I live my life toward and with those who are different from me. The real tragedy, particularly for Christians, is that barriers of race or economic class or even religion are used to define who we are. Jesus knew that would never work for the world. This is why he taught us to forgive our enemies, to care for our strangers, to provide for others and share what we have and who are are. Any way other than this is the way of death -- because it is the way of the human heart dividing humanity.
Every day as I sit with the violence we humans create, I ask a question: What would it mean to create a world of peace? What if I really saw in the faces of everyone, the face of Jesus? If I really want to show solidarity with the people of France, Lebanon, Iraq, or Turkey -- if I really want to provide for the refugees in Syria or Palestine -- if I really care for the Yazidi community, the Nigerian girls, the shootings in the US, the Nepal earthquake victims, the women in my neighborhood who risk assault every time they leave their homes, the young girls destroying their bodies trying to fit into the world. That's going to take more than changing my photo on Facebook.
Now, lest anyone misunderstand me, I'm not saying you shouldn't change your picture on Facebook. I'm only saying we shouldn't stop there -- especially those of us who claim to follow Jesus shouldn't stop there. By all means, if this is the first step you take in working for peace and justice in the world, take that step. But don't let the journey end there.
Please don't just get swept up in a social media frenzy and do it because it "looks good" or "feels" like the right thing to do. Pause for a moment just to ask what it means to you to filter your pictures and hashtag your posts: What do you hope to achieve with it and will you be able to achieve it fully in this way? Would you also change your photo if there had been an option for Lebanon, Kenya, Nigeria, Turkey, Palestine ... or any other country in the world that suffered just as incredible a loss, even if you'd never heard of the place?
Then ask the really difficult questions: Why or why not?
What else might you do? Whether or not the news is filled with distressing headlines. Because, somewhere -- everywhere! -- at some time -- every day! -- people are hurting and bleeding and dying. What would it mean to show your support and to work for justice with peace here and now, where you are?
That, after all, is the very heart of Jesus' Gospel. Let these lives and faces be the reason you don't stop with just a picture or a hashtag.
Not even 8 hours later, I changed my mind, deleted the picture, and have no intention of utilizing it again. I'm also avoiding those hashtags like #prayforparis that seem to be making rounds online.
Here's why.
It's not because I don't care. It's not because I don't share in the shock and sadness.
In fact, it's precisely because I do care, I do share in the sadness, that I changed my mind. Changing my photo or typing out a few characters on social media minimizes (maybe even cheapens) that sadness and grief. The world has known horror and terror for quite some time -- the past few hundred years that have named "the modern world", in truth -- so there's little reason to think that attacks in New York or London or Paris are unique. Out of suffering usually arises some trendy way to process that suffering without getting busy doing the hard work of creating peace.
Why change my photo? To show solidarity? With whom? "The monsters" out there, committing acts like those in Paris, are the same "monsters" deep inside our own murderous hearts. What does it even mean to change a picture online as an act of solidarity?
I'm not trying to be provocative here. I'm only asking what it means to allow a gimmick that's supposed to demonstrate how "clued in" and "with it" we are in the world to say more than what it really says -- that my friends see me as someone who cares.
Those who are my friends, though, know where I stand on violence and making peace. They know that I believe the petty lines we draw on our maps and globes are rather random and fluid, and therefore have more to say about our need to separate humans into camps -- particularly "us" and "them" -- than they are anything real. They know that the victims in Paris are in my prayers, as are my enemies.
I don't need to broadcast this to the world, especially if I'm not willing to take the trouble to change the way I live my life toward and with those who are different from me. The real tragedy, particularly for Christians, is that barriers of race or economic class or even religion are used to define who we are. Jesus knew that would never work for the world. This is why he taught us to forgive our enemies, to care for our strangers, to provide for others and share what we have and who are are. Any way other than this is the way of death -- because it is the way of the human heart dividing humanity.
Every day as I sit with the violence we humans create, I ask a question: What would it mean to create a world of peace? What if I really saw in the faces of everyone, the face of Jesus? If I really want to show solidarity with the people of France, Lebanon, Iraq, or Turkey -- if I really want to provide for the refugees in Syria or Palestine -- if I really care for the Yazidi community, the Nigerian girls, the shootings in the US, the Nepal earthquake victims, the women in my neighborhood who risk assault every time they leave their homes, the young girls destroying their bodies trying to fit into the world. That's going to take more than changing my photo on Facebook.
Now, lest anyone misunderstand me, I'm not saying you shouldn't change your picture on Facebook. I'm only saying we shouldn't stop there -- especially those of us who claim to follow Jesus shouldn't stop there. By all means, if this is the first step you take in working for peace and justice in the world, take that step. But don't let the journey end there.
Please don't just get swept up in a social media frenzy and do it because it "looks good" or "feels" like the right thing to do. Pause for a moment just to ask what it means to you to filter your pictures and hashtag your posts: What do you hope to achieve with it and will you be able to achieve it fully in this way? Would you also change your photo if there had been an option for Lebanon, Kenya, Nigeria, Turkey, Palestine ... or any other country in the world that suffered just as incredible a loss, even if you'd never heard of the place?
Then ask the really difficult questions: Why or why not?
What else might you do? Whether or not the news is filled with distressing headlines. Because, somewhere -- everywhere! -- at some time -- every day! -- people are hurting and bleeding and dying. What would it mean to show your support and to work for justice with peace here and now, where you are?
That, after all, is the very heart of Jesus' Gospel. Let these lives and faces be the reason you don't stop with just a picture or a hashtag.