When Compassion Fails: Social Sabbath Chronicles Pt 1

My armpits were actively sweating – which, honestly, is not *that* unusual since I switched to natural deodorant a few years ago (hello, newfound gratitude for antiperspirant!!) – but that’s not the point.

[The point is also not that I haven’t posted on here in over a year and it feels like a lot to come back suddenly with no explanation. (But also, hi!!!!)]

The point is: I was actively sweating, my anxiety rising as I scrolled through social media one day.

Like, there is a missing child in Tennessee right now. And the kid is DANG cute. Not that it matters even a little, but ohmygosh is this child a precious angel. Her eyes!!! I cannot handle the thought of her parents not knowing where she is. Or the thought of how scared she must be. (Ummm and that true crime reading spree I’ve been on is certainly not helping right now. 😳)

Also! There is a dog shelter that is 400 dogs over capacity in Michigan and if they cannot find foster families for all these dogs – *insert traumatic photo of said puppies* – …..they gone. Like, soon. They will be done living. Soon.

And – AND – there is a distant relative’s young neighbor who has some kind of rare cancer. The doctors can’t figure it out. His GoFundMe is super intense. Will he make it? What will happen to his young kids if he doesn’t??

I won’t even mention the COVID stories. 

Or the natural disasters. 

Or or or….

Sweat. 

So much sweat.

• • •

At the beginning of 2022, I decided to reevaluate my relationship with social media.

Truthfully, I feel like I have had pretty healthy habits set in place for a while now, not because I’m awesome but because it’s kind of my job. 

My side hustle is to help bridge the tech gap between digital and non-digital generations when it comes to all things social media, so I talk about it to live and digital audiences at least thrice a week. (“thrice”. You’re welcome.)

The digital topic is very front of mind so, as a result, I feel like I’ve developed some good boundaries and healthy rhythms for tech’s place in my life. 

For instance, 

• I delete my social apps every weekend. Delete them on Friday, redownload them on Sunday. Usually. (Unless, turns out, it’s US presidential election season. In that case, WE GOOD.)
• I charge my phone in the kitchen to make sure I am falling asleep without a device and waking up without a device.
• I have Do Not Disturb turned on at night and for the first few hours of my morning.

Great, GREAT disciplines. Highly recommend.

But, somehow, still not enough.

This digital life thing is all encompassing, you guys.

Obvious statement. I know.

But when your actual body starts reacting to the a) amount and b) type of information you are consuming online, it should be a pretty good indicator that this here relationship needs some fine-tuning.

And not just because of all the bad stuff. Also because of all the bizarre stuff.

Looking at you, uberperfect family accounts with the perfect marriage and perfect kids whom you seem to have forgotten we know in real life. (Paxton wasn’t so cute or brilliant on the playground last week now, was he?  👀) 

And lookin at you, news channels who wouldn’t know a non-clickbaity headline if it hit you in the face. 

And you, psycho fitness accounts promoting skinniness instead of health. Listen….no judgment, but you’ve never received a well-timed Crumbl cookie and it shows. If you send me your address I will remedy this immediately.

Annnyyywayyy.

I find myself, now, 4 months deep into a social media sabbath.

I won’t sell you on that being a long time, because it’s really not. 

But also it kind of is.

It’s not long in the scheme of physical life.

But it’s long enough in the scheme of digital life that people lowkey think I’m either in crisis or dead and have texted to ask me as much.

• • •

Back to my overactive ‘pits.

One of my biggest takeaways over the past months is the sheer amount of mental space and emotional energy we give to causes and stories that are not ours to give time and energy to.

I find myself this year with a sudden, massive reserve of compassion, because it’s not actively being dispersed across 800 different channels anymore.

It sounds harsh when stated that way, but think about it:

There are seasons in our own immediate families when it feels like everyone has something going on.

Seasons when it feels like we cannot add one more hard thing to this plate, please and thank you.

Seasons where you are overwhelmed and exhausted and just trying to stay alive and afloat.

And that’s just one family.

And that’s how overwhelming life can feel.

Multiply that by 338 people and families (the average number of Facebook friends, by the way) and 150 more (average followers on Instagram) – not to mention all the other apps and suggested stories and accounts and posts from random people and all the books and the podcasts and the shows AND the actual humans we know and…..yeah.

It gets overwhelming quickly.

All the stories. All the narratives. All the life.

The good and the bad. The celebrations and the sorrows.

We simply were not designed to shoulder upwards of 500 people’s baggage. Or even their triumphs.

We were not designed to walk in close-knit community with 500 of our closest friends.

And yet we are.

We try, anyway.

And our efforts turn into compassion fatigue real quick.

We can state, “Welp, looks like another sink hole just took out a whole Florida neighborhood and all of its residents.”  in the same way we’d say, “Keep forgetting to mention, but the toilet is clogged again.”

You can only sweat for so long before it turns into plain ole exhaustion.

• • •

Here’s what I have realized over the past few months:

As Jesus followers,

in an unchecked digital culture,

we are trying to journey alongside hundreds of people the Lord has not asked us to journey alongside.

Or, maybe part two of that,

we are in a constant battle with issues and circumstances the Lord has not called us to fight.

And we are expending emotional energy all along the way. 

We are spreading compassion scanty as the icing in an Oreo Thin. (Which is, to say, a disappointing amount.)

So when it comes to the relationships in our actual, real-life circles, we are exhausted going in. When it comes to mental, emotional, and spiritual issues in our spheres of influence, we’re already worn out before we’ve even listened.

Man, I’d love to hear more about that but I’m booked up already. I’m at capacity from all the other stories I’m taking in.

Gosh, that sounds rough. I actually just read a story the other day about a lady in Maryland who had the same thin–actually let me just send you the link.

And so, I fear, 

we’ve begun to settle for a comment instead of a casserole.

For a heart instead of a phone call.

A text instead of a hug.

A tweet instead of a conversation.

And on the flip side, 

we can hide behind a post instead of talking over a meal.

We can filter the tiredness in our eyes instead of admitting things have been hard.

• • •

We simply do not have the bandwidth for it all, and it shows.

We do not have shoulders strong enough to carry the weights of the world.

And? 

We were never asked to do that.

….but.

What if we were asked to do just enough?

What if we were asked to do something?

What if, in our firehose approach with digital relationships, we have begun to shortchange our physical ones?

What if we do actually have the capacity for the people God puts into our immediate paths? Through school, work, church…what if we have just the right amount of capacity for that?

What if we do have the ability not to walk people’s stories for them but to help shoulder the heaviness of what those stories may bring into our lives, into our homes?

What if we do have the endurance to battle the spiritual, emotional, social battles he has called us specifically to fight for?

What if it’s less about capacity and more about intentionality?

These are the questions I find myself asking.

Who has God called me to journey life with, really?

And who do I need to bless (while maybe muting?!) from afar as they live their stories with their own people?

Heck if I know the answer. 

But here’s what I do know:

You and I have been placed in this time, in this culture, in this digital age for a reason.

And our reason is to love God, 

to find God at work right now, 

and to join him as he makes all things new. 

(Oh, and to love the mess out of ourselves and others in the meantime!)

That’s it.

That’s the whole thing.

It’s really important that we ask good questions about how we walk that out.

That we use technology instead of it using us.

That we make intentional choices about how we steward these digital tools and relationships we’ve been given.

That we don’t title blog posts “part 1” after a year+ of radio silence if we aren’t sure there will be a “part 2” in this decade. 

All of these things are important. 

But seriously.

We can do this. You know why? Because we are doing it. We don’t have another option but to do this time.

So let’s do it with intention.

Let’s normalize learning and growing and reevaluating and unplugging and reemerging and readjusting. 

Let’s always be asking how to do this life thing well.

• • •

In the meantime, let’s also take a moment with this beautiful liturgy from my dudes at Rabbit Room and their life-changing liturgical prayer book Every Moment Holy (buy it, like, now if you haven’t already):

“You have many children in many places
around this globe. Move each of our hearts
to compassionately respond to those needs
that intersect our actual lives, that in all places
your body might be actively addressing
the pain and brokenness of this world,
each of us liberated and empowered by
your Spirit to fulfill the small part
of your redemptive work assigned to us.

Give us discernment
to know when to pray, when to speak out, when to act,
and when to simply shut off our screens and our devices,
and to sit quietly
in your presence,

casting the burdens of this world upon the strong shoulders
of the one who

alone
is able to bear them up.

Amen.“