TWEET OR POST?

My prevailing writer’s block is evident in this line I’ve just typed. I am writing about my writing. What I write each week was never originally intended as a social media post. At some point, after the launching of Facebook, someone suggested I begin posting the Pastor's Pen article I've written each week for our church bulletin for close to thirty years. Recently, I’ve been intent on shortening what I write. My wife kindly but candidly coaches me with, “Nobody wants to read something that long.” I respond, “I can’t help it. I can’t write short stories, only novels” (speaking analogously). But I hear her. I desire and have determined to write more pithily, briefly. I am handicapped by two personal hang-ups: First, I always want to analyze every angle of my thought. I want to examine it from every point of view. I want to reconcile it with other truths and opinions that seem contrary to it. I want to fully explain what I mean, leaving no stone unturned. I want to tell the whole story—and thus, the “novel” thing. Second, although I appreciate a clever turn of phrase, I have an aversion to one-liners, or, as I call them, jingles. These can be put on colorful backgrounds and even accompanied by some nice music. People love them. These aphorisms seem to share such wisdom (and some do). They appear and sound so nice, so uplifting, so prescient and poignant. But mostly, they are popular because they are conducive to rapid consumption. They fit nicely in one small frame; no scrolling required. The reason I do not like them so much is that one reads them and assumes he has been given such a handle on the topic. Yet, there are no qualifiers, explanations, and reconciliations with other realities. The slogan is a postcard of the truth. I want the documentary. Speaking of media modes, this reminds me of something I’ve heard about the impact of the different mediums of social media—the impact both on the sharer and the viewers. When one tweets, he tends to be impulsive and volatilely emotional. His sharing is an outburst. When one writes a personal post on Facebook, he tends to ramble on and on and ends up sharing what reads like a first draft of a writing assignment. Why the difference? The length. Twitter limits each tweet to 280 characters. Facebook doesn’t seem to have a limit. At least with my lengthy meanderings, I’ve never reached it. The length determines the expression. Those who’ve read my past blogs know what I do. I share a thought about life and living from history or contemporary events and flesh it out for most of the blog’s duration. Then, I finish up with an application of a spiritual truth that I’ve really been addressing all along. Today’s is no different. I have often spoken and written about expressing our innermost thoughts, feelings, desires, musings—and the benefits and dangers of doing so saying, “Before there were Twitter and Facebook, there were the Psalms.” (Did I just pen a one-liner?) Humans need to express themselves and their innermost thoughts and feelings. There can be real understanding and relief in doing so. This is exactly what the Psalms are. They are the inspired sharing of human emotions and thought and struggles and frustration, etc., to God—for us to use in expressing ourselves. In the Psalms I notice that, analogously speaking, we have both Twitter tweets and Facebook posts. We have the short, impulsive outbursts, and the long analyzing musings of folks sharing their innermost being. We have the Twitter tweet-sized Psalm 117 (156 characters) and the Facebook-post sized Psalm 119 (12,322 characters). In both, the human heart was expressed. So, I guess the Psalms show us we humans need both the short tweets and the lengthy posts. Readers have profited from both. Well, as you can see, if you’ve made it reading this far, my first attempt to write more briefly has miserably failed. But, you know, not that I’m saying what I write is inspired or profitable to readers like the Psalms are, maybe I’m just not a Psalm 117 writer. Maybe I’m a Psalm 119 writer. (In my defense. This post is only 3,473 characters long, only ¼ the length of Psalm 119. Whoops, adding that trivia, I just made my post longer.)