“That pretty little lake, the one you pass on the way into Kansas City International Airport? Its glassy azure surface is one of the first sights that newbies to Kansas City see…” Kansas City Star

The world we live in grows quicker by the minute. Sound bites are no longer the preview before a commercial break. Instead they are the whole story. A tweet reveals the day’s news. The 140 characters can sum up the value of a position, even define the life of person…

Obviously a tweet does not bring depth. Most people tweet to begin the conversation – with the intention of people diving deeper. But the messages fill our society and I am not sure anyone hears over all the chirping… We are not deep. But lately I am not even sure we are shallow. Most of us are just peering out onto the waters – listening to the bird calls.

No one even know what the water holds…

“But it turns out the lake may not be the best advertisement for the metro area. In fact, the lake is filled with airplane deicing fluid, and lots of it.” ~ Kansas City Star

Irony ~ My blog brings a surface rant on shallow tweets. I never went below the surface to question the cause. Because tweets can be conversation starters, if anyone was willing to have a conversation with the other side.

But we are not willing to sit down and discuss things. We would rather talk from afar. No matter that our gossip now reaches around the world… but why won’t we discuss things with the other side? Do we consider the other side to be evil? How do we overcome this breakdown in communication?

Or maybe it is just easier to put out 140 character soundbites? Because the answers are too complicated and difficult we would rather shout and rant, than actually deal with any problems.

Take politics and poverty. I often hear opinions that would cut back (or even cut off) poverty reduction efforts. “Those folks need to learn to work.” But imagine a complete cut-off. Poverty would increase. More troubling, everyone’s safety would decrease, as the violence we have conveniently cornered in government housing projects spread out. I can easily imagine European style riots…

But in the same breath I mentioned a major problem with our current strategy. We place folks into government housing bandaids. Situations that provide no healing. Just keep the problem cornered, in places we do not have to go.

Yet, try to have a conversation about this and the talk revolves around defending the status quo or ending the status quo. Viable options rarely arise.

What is more likely to arise is accusations. Words and phrases that perpetuate our thoughts of the other side as evil. Then up come barriers and separation…

BUT, this is not always the case. In healthy families the pattern plays out, even the accusations. But the barriers never form. Now topics may be avoided, but the relationships are not broken.

Why? Because in family the relationship is more important than the idea.

Now if I could just get the church to realize this… but how? Well I guess the first step is another dose of irony…  but would anyone follow me if I started a Twitter account?

funny. I only hear chirping…