Corita Kent (Sister Mary Corita): than of everything (1967)

Inscriptions and Marks
Signed: l.c.: Corita
(not assigned): Printed text reads: THAN OF EVERYTHING
BULK RATE [stamped in black ink]
© Courtesy of the Corita Art Center, Immaculate Heart Community, Los Angeles / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

"(They don't speak the language.)"

I should have been more careful with how I characterized social media, for nothing was ever quite what it appeared to be. We each feature layers, each consequential but no single one ultimately definitional. We are always and inevitably a melding: yin and yang, helpful as well as utterly helpless, useless yet ultimately useful. Our nobility lies in precisely these dichotomies rather than along any margin or within any conclusion. Some days, perhaps even most days, social media sure does seem beyond redemption, yet abandoning it, even for its proven shortcomings, could only erase any possibility of any hope of redemption. Repeating ad nauseam, which might be the only way any such defensive strategies ever get repeated, creates a world of formerly hopeful alternatives, discredited in practice. We inevitably create a world of also-rans and disappoint ourselves.

Hope was never intended to resolve itself. It exists solely for its own sake. Whether or not it’s ever requited surely must remain irrelevant, for other emotions and aspirations seem fully capable of filling out the palette of possible perspectives. I suppose that any actual Christian might never lose their belief in ultimate redemption, that anyone, however apparently undeserving, might forever remain capable of foregiveness. That any old anybody might ultimately prove to be a saint. It takes a seemingly superhuman stretch of any all-too-human imagination to reach such conclusions. Some might. Most won’t. Still, miracles do sometimes happen. They might occur more often if we held more faith in such possibilities.

My social media’s blowing up this morning with reports of a genuine miracle having occurred. Had I not witnessed the blesséd event, I might feel skeptical. But I was there, watching the broadcast live, when the most consequential single broadcast I’ve ever witnessed unfolded on the screen before me. Bad Bunny, for me, an obscure figure in more modern musical performance than I’m typically interested in, made a powerful statement. His Super Bowl halftime performance was truly one for the ages. I had never before sat through a Super Bowl game. The Muse and I usually flee to the country to watch gambolling lambs on that day. This year, though, found us at my son’s place surrounded by family, celebrating the decidedly ordinary. The Muse made food. I tried my hardest to perform the part of Grumps, the elder, casually watching a one-sided football game. The home team was winning from the first play.

I didn’t understand a word Bad Bunny sang. His performance transcended language. It depicted a world I readily recognized as the one I inhabited, except it seemed more delighted than it’s usually depicted. It focused upon extraordinarily ordinary activities, the ones common to daily living. These seemed extraordinary when presented in this context. It was enormously reassuring, as if everything actually held the distinct possibility of ultimately turning out right. (That kid who accepted that Grammy was the one ICE abducted in Minneapolis and held in detention in Texas until a judge insisted he be returned to his family.) Every action depicted in that performance held stunning significance. The wedding was a real wedding, occurring in real time in that stadium! How fortunate I felt to have witnessed this event, especially since, had I repeated my usual choices, I would have surely missed it.

Now I question my previous characterizations of my social media “addiction.” Was it ever and always as bad as I’d concluded, or had I just threatened to give up on something still filled with potential and possibility? Had I already divorced myself from it, I would have missed all the reassuring and enlivening commentary about Bad Bunny’s performance. I might have easily continued sitting in disappointed discouragement, missing an experience of genuine consequence. If this doesn’t turn the tide in the resistance, nothing can. The opposition has no notion of what’s about to happen next. (They don’t speak the language.)

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz