Two weeks, hard to believe but that’s how long it’s been since I started my new job – assumed my new identity, a Network Designer for the University of Illinois’ IT group. I realize that might sound like Yiddish or something to a lot of the world but it’s what I do. There is something beautiful about the science of information transportation through the ages, from inking cave walls, to oral tradition, to written manuscripts, monks and the like, to postage mail, to telegrams and the telephone, and emails, the web, etc at present. The technological advances in last 20 years have made this life skill fascinating and boasted a job field that employs me.
Have you ever paused and thought for a moment how much your life depends on email, the web, a computer? It can be so hard for me to fully grasp my dependence – largely I think because of the magnitude of it. My life is saturated by this thing. Even now I have returned home from work and I am sitting in front of my laptop, something I’ve been doing all day long. Yesterday I took a Sabbath’s rest, usual for my Sunday, only this time was different. I unplugged. It wasn’t intentional though, our power had flickered while I was running in the early morning, resulting in my computer rebooting and me being logged out of gmail. I didn’t realize this until mid-afternoon and decided to keep it this way – not logged in. I continued my rest, enjoying the ending of a book I had been reading Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell, spending sometime with a couple close friends, and watched the delightful film A Mighty Wind – a favorite of mine. As I crawled into bed my heart warmed as I spoke with my God, relaxed I sank into sleep un-plagued by the pulls of responsibilities and worries.
Opening my inbox at work this morning, offered me a handful of emails from the past day – none so urgent as to warrant guilt for neglecting them. The thing that surprised me the most about this whole experience is how much more rested I felt by simply not checking my email. I think I may embrace this practice on a more regular basis – you should try it.
I had grand thoughts of writing about my new job and how I’m doing, posting pictures and stuff, but I’ve grown tired of this keyboard under finger and I think I’ll go unplug for the evening. Or at least a little while 🙂
