I recently started using Twitter. Not so much to say "On my way to the grocery store" as for the challenge to basically blog in about 10 words. While I don't mind filling people in on what's going on in my life, the tweets (not making this up...that's what comments are called on Twitter) that are most influential for me are the ones that reveal something about the tweetererer (okay, I did make that word up). There is also a feature on Twitter called retweeting. You retweet something that you read from someone else on Twitter. It then appears on your page with the original author's name attached.
Today I placed on Twitter (and, therefore, Facebook...mine are linked...wonders of technology, I know) the following comment: "sometimes it all comes down to wanting to be retweeted." Though I think a few people simply took that as a cheap attempt by me to get retweeted, my intention was different. Deeper, I think.
The more I'm around all of us who are broken the more opportunities that I have to notice how we want to be significant. We want to be noticed. "Retweeting" wouldn't exist if our basic nature didn't cry out for it. Notice me and think that I'm worth something. We clamor for status. How else do you explain couture jeans and foods that take 10 words to claim organic status? Perhaps Halloween lawn ornaments fit into this category, too. And, lest the rest of us be left out, interrupting others in conversation, name-dropping, living beyond our means, withholding affirmation from others and the like all usually have something to do with being noticed and ensuring status. For me, I also trip over my desires to be thought of as "wise" or "articulate".
The Fall is an ugly thing, isn't it?
I didn't so much want my tweet posted over everyone else's twitter page. I was just shooting to communicate that (in ways I wish I didn't have to admit) I want to be noticed, too. I want to be noticed in this world that is passing away to nothing.
I wish I didn't. Jesus needs to teach me more about his sufficiency because I get caught listening to this culture telling me sufficiency comes more from what I know or own than who I am: a child of God being changed into His likeness more each day.
