In the wake of yet another devastating terror attack in Manchester, social media is abuzz with everyone and their mother's opinion- from what Ariana Grande wore on stage at the concert that was the site of the attack, to more and more people tweeting to pray for Manchester, tagging their comments and posts #PrayForManchester.

I was in my backyard during a normal evening when I saw Buzzfeed's first breaking news tweets about the attack, and I thought maybe it would be a false alarm or something minor since all that was known was that there was an explosion or loud noise during the concert. But as more and more news developed over the hours to follow, it became another tragedy to make its mark on 2017, and to be truthful, the era we are experiencing that is plagued with new and advanced forms of terror.

So as was expected, people began to respond to the event. Music greats, politicians, and ordinary citizens spoke out in what seemed like a scripted stream of tweets that we see after every attack or shooting. Everyone is broken. Everyone is confused. Everyone is wondering what is wrong with the world. And everyone is #PrayingForManchester.

The sentiments say a lot about our culture and our leaders- while we are bringing awareness and wanting to take action by taking to social media to respond and grieve, we are also caught in the habit of asking why these things happen each time they do instead of speaking out and taking true action.

While this doesn't always apply to terror situations like the one we saw last week, since terrorism isn't really something a Twitter user can jump out from behind their desktop, head out in the world, and tackle, the tweets and responses I saw seemed to bring about a flashback for me of shootings in the United States over the past few years. From Newtown to San Bernardino, every shooting hit Americans hard, and it seemed that every shooting was met with a hashtag calling for prayer.

Before continuing, I want to say that I'm not denouncing prayer in the slightest. I have many important people in my life who are devoutly religious, semi-religious, or somewhere in between who make prayer a large part of their lives. While I consider myself non-religious, I do have a great amount of respect for those who devote all or a part of their lives to religion- I think it's admirable.

However, what isn't admirable in my opinion is words without action, sentiments without understanding, and throwing around words and social media tags to continue to put a band-aid on a tragedy and global crisis transcending generations. Praying for these countries, people, cities, and groups is not stepping up to say something or do something. It's tweeting, and that's just about it.

I can't stand people calling for prayer over tragic incidents when families have lost their loved ones. I understand the value of prayer when a life has been lost, because depending on your belief system, this can go a long way in their passing and the fate of their soul after death. However, no amount of prayer can bring those victims of violence back, no amount of prayer can fix the cracks in our society on a national and global level, and no amount of tweets calling for the world to stop what they're doing and pray are going to fix the problem, fight terrorism, or make amends.

I'm going to guess a reader who's gotten this far with me (thank you, by the way, for sticking with me while I ramble) is wondering how I came to this rant. To sum it up, it was a tweet I saw that had been liked by a few old classmates on my feed showing a list of all of the #PrayFor tags over the course of the tragedies that have unfolded over the past few years that have ties to extremist groups and terror groups, and it asked what the "common denominator" was in all of these situations. While that author was getting at the root the global problem of terrorism and widespread terror attacks by ISIS and others and not the hashtag that has prompted this post, what I noticed was those beginnings of each tag, and the need so many felt to pray for the gaping wounds facing our society.

Prayer can make us feel calm in the wake of grief and chaos, can bring about solace and resolution in our own turmoil, and has brought relief to many in hard, dark times. But I find it irresponsible, selfish even, for us to believe that the problems that take the lives of strangers are our own to pray for, and that those prayers will save the world- it's true that we have the right idea, but we must do more.

I think that instead of sitting around and praying we ought to be donating, whether it is goods or time or money, being activists, writing to our legislators, and standing up for what we believe in. In the wake of terror attacks, we need to donate blood, if the attacks are close to home, find ways to provide aid from afar, and talk about the problems our world faces and how we can eradicate terrorism. These projects go much farther than a prayer (or really a tweet lacking a true prayer behind the keyboard of an iPhone or laptop) does.

When it comes to gun violence, where I really become bothered with calls to pray, I think it's much better for us to stand up and enact change to our gun laws- meaning that we need more gun control, right now, and less prayer. A prayer isn't going to bring back a loved on lost or change the face of our houses of legislature- a prayer is a call for attention to your godliness and appearance of altruism. While it is a hope, a desire, and a yearn for change that can be formulated into action and making a difference, it isn't the productive work we need on social media in 2017.

Next time we see a tragedy, and I hate that I have to say that but at our going rate I know there will be another tragedy, I hope you'll tweet for action and not prayer. Make your posts and words go a long way, because if you can make a difference you should make an external one rather than internalizing a thought or hope while sitting idle and comfortable in your own life.

#StandUpForManchester

Tweet referenced: https://twitter.com/RealJamesWoods/status/86703890...