As regular readers of this blog may be aware, I love the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Loved the books and loved the movies.  I still read the books from time to time.  And watch the movies over and over again.  But I guess I don’t need to tell any of you that.

One of my very favorite scenes in either books or movies is the scene between Merry, Pippin and Treebeard where the hobbits are trying their very best to convince the ent that the ents must join with the forces of men, elves, hobbits and dwarves against the orcs in this epic battle.  It takes them quite a bit of convincing just to get Treebeard to move.  But he finally decides that meeting would be a good idea and off he went for an interminably long meeting.  He came back to make a report after days … literally, days … of talking.  His report?  “Weeeeee haaave decided.  Yoooouuuuu aaaarrrrrreeee noooooot Orcs.”

The look of dismay, mixed with disgust, need and something else on Merry and Pippin’s faces was priceless.  I love that moment.  It is such an amazing clash of cultures and paradigms.  Each learning how to interact with the other.

Yesterday morning, I was brushing my teeth, washing my face, getting dressed and mulling over some long standing issues in my life.  By long standing, I mean they’ve been sitting out there for about three or four years.  So I mulled and thought and came to some resolution about how I wanted to moved.  I finished up, went downstairs and said to LightHusband, “I’ve made a decision.”  He looked at me with a grin, “What?  I’m not an orc?”  I laughed and replied, “Well, I’ve known you’re not an orc for 20 years now.  But I’ve decided that there are some people who are orcs to me.  Or at least I need to treat them that way … sort of.  For me to be healthy.”  He arched a brow and said, “You mean I got it right?  You really are an ent?”  “Yes, I really am an ent.”

I went on make the following explanation.  Well.  My explanation to him was similar.  But not the same.

I’ve spent the last three years playing the part of Lot’s wife.  Sometimes I wonder about that story.  I remember reading about it in some popular literature when I was younger.  There was speculation that the weapon of destruction for Sodom was a nuclear bomb and Lot’s wife died of radiation.  But I think she was turned to stone from grief.  Grief can stop us in our tracks and turn us to stone and the operative action that causes it is “turning back.”  Lot’s wife turned back, and her tears turned her into a pillar of salt.  That has been my reality for far too long now.

I have allowed myself to look back and pine for what was, what can never be and what I wish for.  I doubt they ever will be and my wishing my life away is not healthy for me or anyone else involved.  So my quilts will be for those who I am in active contact with at this time.  That means people I see and talk to on the telephone … who know what is going on in my life beyond Facebook and Twitter statuses (stati?).  To those of you reading this who have gone down that road (and you know who you are), choosing to believe your church leaders about us and thinking you might still love us is no longer possible.  It is time to stop looking back.

Those of you who would like to remain in relationship with us, you will need to be able to talk with us openly about that horrible time in our lives and hear our pain without denying it or taking it away from us.  It is a wound that continues to bleed and tear at our souls.  You will need to be unafraid of picking up the phone and calling us or writing us an old-fashioned e-mail now and then.  More now than then.  In short, you will have to desire a relationship with us that requires something of you.  So … I am going to un-Friend you on Facebook and Twitter.  And sever those tenuous ties with you.  I need to move forward.  I need to release myself from the grip that era has on my mind and my soul.

Because sometimes … people who are not orcs, really do have an orc-like effect on others.  And then they need to be kept at a distance if one is to remain healthy and on the road to happy without “looking back” and turning into a pillar of salt.

That was the question posed by a friend in response to my FaceBook status this morning.

I found my reply somewhat cynical and that surprised me:

Hmmm … I don’t know.

I’m feeling more and more out of the loop even though I’m sort of in it.

It’s a weird liminal space where you’re sort of connected, but really, you’re not. It’s just people hurling information at you. Most folks are following so many people that if you try to start a conversation or ask a question, it gets lost in the flotsam.

As I sat back looking at what I wrote with the objectivity of a stranger, because I was really that surprised by myself, Hamlet’s famous soliloquy came to mind:

To be or not to be, that is the question;
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them. 

And I wondered, is it really blogger suicide to not Twitter?

Many of us have joined.  Some more enthusiastically than others.  Now Twibes are forming.  Hashtags are being used for convenience.  I’ve been a tweet or a twit or whatever-you-want-to-call-it for quite some time now and have over 2,000 updates … most of them useless pieces of information about my life that really no one should care about except me.  Strange thoughts and errant conversations.  Clogging the information highway with my little automobile of me.

So, why do we do this?  Why do we want to connect on Twitter and with our FaceBook status and on Plurk and all the other social media that’s out there beckoning?  Bob Hyatt wrote a compelling piece on this matter the other day that’s worth a read about why we need to keep this all in proper balance.  But I’m wondering about the deeper magic of why?  LightHusband even came back from a defense contracting conference last week and told me that the upper level management people (i.e. in their 50’s and 60’s) were talking about how to use these sorts of platforms in the workplace to engage young people as they come into the various agencies; how to secure them, etc.   What?!?  Defense agencies want to use social media??  Surely Jesus is about to return.  😉

So what do you think?  Do you Twitter? Or FaceBook?  Why? or why not?  What do you think of the social media revolution thing?