I was thinking about my idea about feelings over appearance that I wrote about yesterday. I was in a restaurant this morning eating breakfast. On the napkin dispenser, there was a ad to join the restaurant’s social club and to get updates through social media. I realized that it wasn’t really a social club at all. Any interaction through that club on social media would be totally superficial. Then, it dawned on me that most of the interaction that we have with people is superficial, especially on social media.
On a computer, when you interact with someone, it really is totally anonymous. In fact, there is no way to verify that the person is who they say they are. They could say that they are a sixty-year-old grandma from Iowa when they are really a twenty-year-old man from Ghana.
Yet, it is almost that way out in the real world, too. There are countless people that I talk to without really knowing their names or without knowing anything significant about them. I want to love my brothers and sisters in Christ, but the very sad truth is I don’t really know very many.
I don’t know if I will ever really know how to connect with anyone in a very real way when I live in this superficial world of shadows and illusions, but I do know that I should try, and that God gives me some guidance. He tells me to love others as I love myself. To love myself, I had to learn about myself and accept myself. So, now I must try to learn about others and accept them as they are, even if all they are is what is on the outside.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
