Tag Archives: social media

Stairway

Bottom Ten

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I began this poem in 1998 and finished it a decade later. It was finally published three years ago this month. It seems to speak to our increasingly fractured online times.

I live with my door shut.
You can’t come in.
I am alone in my completeness.
I am complete, alone.
I am one,
Only.

SLAM!

I live with my door shut.
It’s cold in here.
My window is open.
It faces against the sun.
But I am too,
Lonely.

SLAM!

I live with my door shut.
Don’t bother me now.
I have things to do
But not with you.
I am testing
One, two three.

SLAM!

I live with my door shut.
But your hand keeps knocking.
You try to open
But I close again.
It’s only for
Me.

CLICK!

I live with my door shut,
A barrier smooth and cool.
It protects my secrets,
Which melt in the light.
Clutch them inside my five
Fingers.

SHUT!

I live with my door shut,
The hinges rusting.
A quarantine sign
Deters you from entry.
There is sick
Here.

CREAK!

I live with my door shut,
Hoping against hope.
Actually not – I’m
All crapped out.
Seven come
Eleven.

WHAM!

I live with my door shut,
An illusion of safety.
A game of chance
For losers, behind
The eight
Ball.

CRACK!

I live with my door shut,
Schrödinger’s Cat.
See me  –
Change me.
Nine
Lives.

HISS!

I live with my door shut,
Hanging by a thread
Over the razor blade of the future.
Not betting on this hand.
Ten
Fold.

Read more poetry here.

woman peeping through door hole

Double Vision

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(a three-minute read)

This is being written in the year 2023. Everyone acknowledges it’s 2023, whether or not they say ‘The Year of Our Lord, 2023’ as they once routinely did. It remains 2023.

Calendar years were once universally labeled ‘BC’ and ‘AD’, meaning Before Christ and Anno Domini (Latin for ‘In the Year of Our Lord’). Some now secularize it, saying ‘CE’ (Common Era) instead of ‘AD’, as if to deny that time is God’s creation and his purview.

Regardless, every calendar you buy still has the year measured from the time of Christ. Jesus remains the linchpin of history, time and all the rest, whether God-haters like it or not. They may choose to measure in metric instead of imperial, as it were, but the starting point and standard of measurement, Christ, cannot be changed.

All of which to say we can change the labels of things but we can’t change their meaning. I can re-save this word document with a new name, even in a new folder, but it won’t change the content.

We live in a world of double-meanings. Linguistic double-talk; deliberately ambiguous or evasive language. We struggle against shape-shifting verbiage that means one thing to you and another to me. Or it means something different now than it did just last year.

We now must avoid deep conversations unless all of us agree on the meanings of our terms before we begin. Otherwise, we argue.

Many invoke doublethink from Orwell’s 1984, (e.g. war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength) to explain the expanding realm of miscommunication in public discourse.

This is misleading and shallow. Doublethink was actually the ability to hold two completely contradictory beliefs at the same time, and to believe they are both true. That may have been the Big Lie of the USSR (and modern China come to think of it), but the first one crumbled and the second one is brittle.

No – doublethink isn’t today’s challenge. Nor is double-talk, which is, simply, gibberish. We’ve moved past that to what I’ll call parallel-talk. That is, the existence of two dissimilar meanings of the same term that are true for two different individuals or groups.

Take a term that used to be politically neutral like ‘liberalism’. It used to mean one thing only: a political philosophy advocating private property, rule of law, free markets, and protection of individual liberties. That’s still what it means to me. I consider myself a liberal. But the definition of liberal has slipped. Because I follow Christ and not so-called progressive convention on social issues, I confuse people when I call myself a liberal.

Instead, I’m labeled a conservative, and am even characterized by some as a bigot and a homophobe, simply because I believe what God said in the Bible.

Hence, the need for definitions before any debate, otherwise we can simply talk past one another.

As a society, we’ve moved from hypocrisy (the normal human condition) to gibberish (the curse of the overly-educated) to double-talk (shifting meanings) to outright confusion (life in the virtual world).

When everyone agreed on terms, our common cultural understanding made reasoned discourse possible. Even those engaged in acrimonious public debate often remained friends after hours. This was and is healthy.

Now, we blow people out of our lives for simply expressing the wrong opinion, wearing a red cap or a blue/yellow button. This is not healthy. It’s poisonous.

Yes, we’ve come full circle, and the language that once served us well has now become our greatest impediment to understanding.

Image by Ketut Subiyanto via Pexels

Blank male Facebook profile

Through the Looking Glass

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(A three-minute read)

I’m not the first person to duck out of the social media sphere, and I won’t be the last.

It’s not about Lent, really, although I’m observing it. It’s about a larger need to withdraw from the relentless shallowness of my life online. I’ve been there since 1996 and a quarter-century is quite long enough.

Besides, you and I can pull off a meaningful relationship without instant access to each other’s opinions, moods and outbursts. Can’t we?

If we’re connected, we’ll stay connected.

With some people I love, once a year is enough to keep the flame burning. Not because I dislike them, but because I know them and I trust them.

If you and I can only connect through social media, were we really that connected in the first place? If not, why continue the fiction? This isn’t meant to be harsh, just an honest, loving question for myself.

If I read every rant, meaningfully responded to every prayer request, or dove down every rabbit-hole I run across daily online, I’d do nothing else. My life would be full, but my spirit would be empty. My time would be used up, but I’d have nothing to show for it, really.

Meanwhile, the invisible algorithms push me more and more toward thoughts and ideas they think most represent me. Or at least the digital avatar they have built of me. They push me further and further down a narrowing tunnel. I’m suffocating.

It’s time to emerge. If I stayed, I’d remain connected with hundreds of you all the time, but only by a digital thread. These two-dimensional relationships are truly looking through a glass, darkly.

If I leave, I’m more free to choose and to think and to believe, and to seek meaning. I’ll have more time to stop for the one who’s in front of me.

So, it’s time for me to step back. If you want to stay in touch by subscribing here – great. I love you and always will. If it’s too much bother – I understand; I’ve felt that way too. Meanwhile, I love you and always will.

Pleasant Lines is not about building a dynasty, or an edifice, or a career, or something worthy of promotion. I merely write because I’m called to write. You can read if you are called to read.

So – even though you won’t see links to my pieces on Facebook any more, the pieces themselves will still be here, every week, usually on Thursdays. Sometimes on Fridays when I get busy with other stuff.

Like right now, I’m working on a novel. Well, a series of books really. It began as a novel, then expanded into a set of four as the story grew. Now the outline looks like six books. The outline for Book Five is almost complete. I have 8,113 words down in Book One, as of this writing. There’s a long road ahead.

Fortunate Child began as a simple coming-of-age story set in the 1970s. It has now grown to have a strong romance sub-plot as well, and some serious multi-generational conflicts. If you subscribe here, you’ll eventually get some samples, after I get farther along in Book One.

I have a collection of poetry that’s slowly coming to completion. Some of what’s already on the site may be included, perhaps in a different form.

The other thing I’ve been researching is a series of historical novels about Iron Age life in Britain. Why not? It lies all around me here. The pre-Roman period is largely unknown, but recent archeological finds and theories of the last quarter-century make for a vivid backdrop against which to set a sweeping saga.

Braveheart it ain’t. No woad-painted bodies. I hope to begin writing that before the end of this year.

So that’s what I’m up to.

What are you up to? Write me and let me know. Comment here, or use the contact form found on this site. You might even know my email address or telephone number.

I’m not hard to find, when you choose to find me.