recently

I comment I wrote on a blog recently as a response to links on the conflict in Ferguson. I wanted to share it here to document in this blog as a memory of this time. 

My prayers still go out to everyone involved - e.v.e.r.y.o.n.e - I pray that peace will prevail. I pray that my city will not continue feeling scared and anxious. I pray that people will turn to God and work for the common good. I ask for your prayers as well so that the amount of prayers will be so overwhelming that these things must happen.

What I love is that everyone in the age of social media has become an expert on things they really don't know much about. I have read stories on Ferguson, and while I am by no means an expert, I live closer than many. We just don't know all the facts yet. Photographers take powerful photographs, but those don't explain the whole story. People tweet and text and post, but again, those are instantaneous and don't explain the whole story. People get things wrong, opinions change and change again, facts emerge, with time the story can be written. People will always put the headline, the photograph, the tweet from one perspective but it can be difficult to see things from all perspectives.

 

If there is one thing I have learned, it is that the way the media (professional and non) have represented my region since this whole debacle makes me reconsider a lot of what I see online, particularly in the areas of conflict. It makes me wish that stories were truly showing or considering both sides of an issue or topic, instead of rushing to conclusions.