Last week I intended to release another excerpt from Digital Grace: Pouring Benevolence into an Outraged World. Publication inches closer and I’m excited to share more of what I’ve been working on. But as the insightful Ann Hawkins asks in the title of her February 28, 2022 weekly newsletter, “What do you write about when people are being bombed?”
I gave myself a week off from writing, hoping that more time to process the heaviness in Ukraine would help me clarify my thoughts. But one more week has gone by and I still don’t want to write. It seems wrong to carry on talking about the upsides of digital media and my upcoming book when life as Ukrainians know it — and life at all for some — has come to an end.
But this tweet from a woman documenting her daily life during wartime reminded me of why I still believe in the power of social media to bring us together despite the ways it is used to drive us apart.
If, facing the unthinkable, this woman can believe in the strength of our shared humanity, so can I. So can we.
Connecting and sharing our humanity on social media matters.
Our shared humanity is the bridge between them and us. Their story becomes our story and our story becomes theirs.
And as our stories intertwine, it becomes increasingly obvious that we share responsibility for building a better world for all of us — together.