On Saturday, I finished Shakespeare’s Richard III and Tony Reinke’s 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You. I didn’t think there would be much connection between those two books: I was trying to finish Richard III before reading/listening to it with the kids in Morning Time, and trying to finish Reinke’s book before the library’s 14-day lending period for new books was up. But after reading about the pitfalls of seeking our approval via social media “likes”, I was struck by the despairing cry of Lord Hastings, who has been falsely condemned by the power-grabbing Richard and is being led to his execution:
O momentary grace of mortal men,
Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!
Who builds his hope in air of your good looks
Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast,
Ready with every nod to tumble down
Into the fatal bowels of the deep.
We may not lose our our physical heads, but an addiction to seeking the approval of man through social media – or any other avenue – can threaten our spiritual, emotional, and mental health. Reinke’s book has me thinking about how to avoid those traps and better use my online interactions to seek God’s glory rather than my own (I’ll be quoting from his book tomorrow). And I’ve found our Shakespeare passage to memorize this term, along with the last few lovely lines of Richmond’s prayer in Act 5, Scene 3. 🙂
