So, TikTok is a new social media platform. It’s also insanely popular and has become so very quickly. Basically, its a mix between Twitter and a YouTube video––people can post short videos that they themselves have created. It invites creativity and ingeniously shares them with all kinds of different people, which is part of why its become so successful. When it was brand new, it was defined by young people doing trendy dances. Now, it is a venue to share everything from antiquarian books, professional trades, food and cooking, gardening, sports, travel––anything you can imagine. 

I intentionally engaged with TikTok because it was becoming popular and I wanted to understand it. Even though social media has lots of downsides, it has become part of our digital world. And just like there’s no point in disputing the rain, sometimes the right move is to make the best of it. I try to share something interesting or something uplifting from the internet here every week, so I thought I would invite us to see some of the good things happening in this new digital landscape.So today––have you ever been in a public place and noticed many people around you with headphones in? Everyone is around one another, but you don’t know what’s going on beneath their earbuds? One TikTok account has some (very confident!) people interrupt someone’s listening to ask what they are listening to––and the results are kind of amazing, like a beautiful interruption of our private selves, and a reminder of just innate and worthy that innate worth and dignity is, when you realize a stranger is bopping away to a song you love. Take a look at it here.

Allan T. Georgia, M.Div., M.T.S., PhD

Sometimes it is hard to tap into our spiritual selves or find time to nurture our intellectual curiosity. Here is a section that reflects on some nourishing materials from around the web and related media channels in order to get us thinking, get us feeling, and get us reflecting on the lives we are living in this big, beautiful world. **Some Adult/Mature Themes May Appear in Links and Other Attached Material**