I really want to be vulnerable and authentic on social media. To air the dirty laundry, to be human. To be broken. To subvert the paradigm of the curated life. To not live my life through a series of filtered photos of filtered coffee from cafes that I have carefully filtered through the lens of my snobbery.
I truly believe the lack of this sort of vulnerability – there’s plenty of vulnerability that is simply attention seeking – is one of the pitfalls of social media. Everyone looks like they have it more together than me. Incidentally, I crave the same authenticity in real world relationships. For us to be broken and vulnerable – without the fear that such honesty will be weaponised and turned against us. Wouldn’t our churches be more welcoming if people bringing brokenness into the gathering didn’t feel like everybody else had everything completely under control. Bare relational functionality is a foreign concept to so many of those around us who have grown up in broken homes.
So why am I unable to be vulnerable, broken, and authentic online?
Here’s my thesis: authentic brokenness that rises above the virtual clutter will be authenticity that expresses genuine gratitude – anything else is the same self-image promotion we’re trying to steer clear of, just in a different package.
I want authenticity. But I’ve found it almost impossible to be authentically broken in what I post – in fact, I think at times it would be wrong, and self seeking, for me to share my brokenness.
At my very best I sometimes manage to not post quite so much of the ‘my life is awesome’ dross as I feel inclined to do, to moderate what I post mindful of the way it might alienate those who do not have what I’ve been given, who crave it.
I stuffed up recently. I was a bad father, and a worse husband. I was pig-headed, proud, so very broken. I thought “this is a chance for me to publicly flagellate myself for my failings. To be honest. To let it all hang out.” And yet, I didn’t pull the trigger, and I’m confident this was the right decision.
Why?
Because like my brokenness, so much of our brokenness – the really messy stuff – happens in the context of relationships, and some of this story is not mine to tell. It’s ours. In my case this week – it’s hurt shared by my family, and brokenness inflicted on them. It doesn’t serve them to share it. The hurt is not mine to exploit for the sake of my own authenticity.
I’ve been thinking more about Augustine and Luther’s notion of humanity curved in on itself – the idea that every human act, regardless of its apparent external trajectory, is ultimately self-seeking.
Though it might seem like it if you read the Internet, wading through the comments on Richard Dawkin’s website, or the ABC religion pages, it’s not all that complicated to understand what the book of Genesis is all about, its function in the story of the Bible, it accounts for the good but broken world that we live in, it diagnoses my heart, and yours, arriving at the same point as Augustine and Luther… It provides the setting for the rest of the story of the Bible, and of human history, the story that climaxes at the Cross.
“The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” – Genesis 6:5
This is true for the times we want to attempt such vulnerable authenticity. This ‘curve’ affects even those times that we’re acknowledging that our hearts are curved in on themselves. I’m no more righteous because I acknowledge that I’m broken, I’m just broken in different ways (and maybe slightly more self-aware of that brokenness). Perversely, I might even start to feel pride that I’m much better at being broken than those around me, that I’m much more self-aware. That I am more authentic.
What are we truly expecting when we post stuff about what is wrong with the world? It’s not a humble-brag, it’s the anti-brag. Even in moments of genuine contrition what am I going to do when the supportive comments come streaming in – without all the background on the situation?
How will I respond – how will the person I’ve wronged respond – when comments like these start popping up?
“You’re not so bad…”
“I think you’re great…”
“You’ll do better next time.”
Who does this serve?
Me.
I’ve decided a far better way when it comes to authenticity online is not genuine brokenness – but genuine gratitude.
It’s gratitude that marks out a genuine, not self-serving, response to our own brokenness.
Gratitude towards those around me who stick with me even when I don’t deserve it, and ultimately gratitude towards God. Gratitude to God – who not only made an amazing world with plenty to be thankful for as we enjoy it, but he sticks with us though our natural inclination is to push him out of the picture, to live for my own image and name’s sake, not for his, to join the angry mob shouting ‘crucify him’… He gave his life in exchange for ours. I’m not sure there are any more profound words in the Bible than those from Jesus on the Cross – speaking about the people who put him there. His enemies.
“Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing…”
He’s not just talking about the people standing under his feet as he expires. He’s talking about the finite number of people who will ever exist. He’s talking about me. And you. Everyone. Even though our hearts are curved away from him and towards ourselves.
Do you reckon John Newton would have released Amazing Grace if he knew how his brokenness would be put up in lights (literally, in the days of overhead and data projectors) paraded for so many people in so many places, across such a long period of time, to see? I think he would have. Absolutely. But do you think the song would have anything like it’s power if it was simply a confession of his wretchedness, and not genuine thankfulness in the face of what God did for him at the cross?
Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
That’s pretty much the note to be hitting, I think, when it comes to how we live our authentically broken lives – which is, I think, incredibly important for Christians in the social media space, on platforms that are geared towards cultivating and curating one’s preferred self in front of one’s preferred friends.