Take your hand off the Mouse. Take it off now and no one will get hurt
Posted on February 28, 2007
Filed Under A Geek's Guide to the Scriptures | 2 Comments
[Author's note: In an effort to support Shut Down Day (March 24th) I re-worked an email that I sent on Dec. 6, 2003, and posted it here for you. I think that my encounter with my son, and the notion of shutting off my computer for a whole day have something in common.]
Are you familiar with Jason and the ArgoBots? Me neither. Well, at least I’m not familiar with them yet, but I think I’m going to be taking a crash course soon. You see, my son came home from art class with a few of the “Jason†books because his teacher recommended them. They are a kinder, gentler version of the very popular Japanese comic book style called manga.
Boy was he totally psyched! Boy was I totally not ready to listen to him.
Our conversation went something like this:
Son: Dad! These stories are really cool.
Dad: (working on the computer) yeah, uh huh, (click, click, click-drag-click) That’s nice.
Son: I like the Jason character. These stories are great!
Dad: uh huh, that’s nice (click, click-drag-click, click)
Son: and look at this one, Dad, pretty cool art, huh?
Dad: yeah, uh, I see (click, click, clickity click)
Suddenly, he paused, probably observing the semi-focused look in my eyes as I pointed my face in the general direction of his voice (click, drag-and-click, click, double-click) It was his pause got my attention.
He, being the budding young artist that he is, was all enthusiastic about a new genre and new ideas and new possibilities and new adventures and I, well I was not paying the slightest bit of attention to him.
It wasn’t easy; I felt a little light headed at first, and I lost my concentration a couple of times (Hasn’t that down load finished yet? I wonder if I should tweak the firewall while I’m at it.). I wouldn’t say that the connection we made in that moment was exactly stellar. He was trying his utmost to down load all of his excitement to my brain at gigabit speeds. Alas, I was barely able to muster up about a 50k reception.
But at least we talked, and I managed to stay with him most of the time. Just a couple of dropped connections here and there. Not bad under the circumstances. At least it’s a start.
How about this for an abrupt change of direction?
This is not really about my son.True though it is that we need to put relationships first and do away with distractions and be fully present when people talk to us, this little story is not about that.Did you catch the turning point in my time with my son? “It was his pause that got my attention.â€
Have you ever had someone suddenly pause when talking to you? They realize that you are not listening and they just stop. Have you ever had God do that to you? I have, lots of times. I suppose it is how Elijah felt when he finally spent himself and found himself in a cave and all the pyrotechnics from God were over and there was only a still, small voice (some teachers say it was the sound of “nothing.”). It was as if God suddenly went silent on Elijah, like my son did with me.
Ever notice how sometimes God cuts through all of our noise by going silent, folding His arms and just waiting, waiting so see if we will notice His “still small voice” ? Have you ever gotten so caught up in your schedule, your emails, IMs, the “crack-berry” surfing the Internet, or trying to get the church on time, that you feel as if you are barely listening to God? “click-drag, clickity-click…” and all the while God is patiently waiting. Waiting for you to take the hand off the mouse-or the calendar, or the lawn mower, or the home work– and give Him your full attention.
BOTTOM LINE (sorry for “shouting” but some of you are “bottom line” types, and this may be the only section you read–and that’s ok… 
Unplug!
Shut down your computer, power off your hand held, put your iPod in a draw and spend some time in solitude with God. In this world of ever increasing distractions, we need to take ever more determined measures to pull away from it all and spend time with God, giving Him our full attention–and not just pointing our spiritual face in His general direction.
It is a great opportunity to shut down you computer, et al, and see if you can “survive.” But why not take it a little further and spend at least some of that day alone with God?Go ahead, give it a try. I will be. I’m going to shut it all down for a whole day, even my “crack-berry.”
It’s going to feel a little weird, I’m sure. I’ll probably go through some cold sweats and get headachie and irritable. I may need to call on a support group for some intervention, but I know that it will be good for me.
QUESTION: If you were stuck in a room by yourself for a full day, with no computer, no cell phone, no gaming device, no TV, no iPod, no magazines, DVDs, not even a Calvin and Hobbes comic book, and it was just you and just God, would that be enough for you?
Would God be enough for you, or would you get “bored” or lonely or antsy, etc. Shut down you computer on March 24th, spend some time with your family, with a book, with nature, cleaning the garage, anything but surfing the Internet. Oh, and carve out a large chunk of the day for solitude with God.
Then what say you come back here and tell the rest of us about it?
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I’m already wondering what it will be like to have all my techno-devices shut off. Fortunately, March 24 is a Saturday, not a work day, but it will still be a bit of a challenge. For I’m going to go the distance and not limit this to my computer. Yep, the phone is going off too. For some of us, that is much tougher than the computer. Talk about an addiction! It astounds me how desperate some people are to to keep the stimulation going–2 seconds of “down time” and phwip! out comes the phone, or the iPod or the game device or anything else to get one’s mind off of the grocery line or the traffic or …. or… or what? What are we trying to drown out with all of the chat and music and news and text messages and….
When I was in high school, a friend once told me that I was afraid to be alone, alone with myself. After all of these years, that statement has stuck with me. It was a God send moment. It was a beginning.
I wonder if sometimes people grab for their phones, PCs, games, etc. because they too are afraid, afraid of the silence, afraid of “missing something” or in reality afraid of themselves.
On the other hand, I think that sometimes we just get caught up in things and develop bad habits, habits that make the notion of occasional solitude and reflection seem impossible. But it is not impossible. Indeed, it is essential to our souls to shut out the noise once in a while.
I predict all of the over stimulation in society today will create a backlash from our children, or more likely, from *their* children. Most of the teens I know are really deep into techno-toys (not real technology like relational databases or proxy firewalls, but Toys–text messaging, cell phones, MP3s, YouTube, etc.). I predict that their children will get sick of all that and shun it. Mabye even this current generation of teens, by the time they get married and start families, will “go home and rethink their lives” and start the “revolution” themselves. They may even start pushing for more solitude, silence, reflection etc. in the Church. They may look at my generation’s music (Chris Tomlin, Delirious, et al) and say “too loud! We get enough noise out in the world. We don’t want it in church. We need serenity, time for reflection, peace, silence.”
Far fetched idea? Societies tend to move in cycles, so I don’t really think it is far fetched. Who would have thought that most of the 60s anti-establishment kids would become the 80s me-generation of Yuppies? Who would have thought that a classical music loving parent (my mom) would have a Pink Floyd kind of son (me) who in turn has a classical music loving child (my son). Some things go in cycles.
SHUT DOWN DAY, How it went for me…..
well, right up front, I admit that I had some help in the form of being in a car on my way to Florida (more on that in another post coming soon). But hey, I did shut off my crack-berry and I refused to get out the laptop–or let anyone else get it out. That meant, no checking the weather or news Saturday morning while in the hotel room, no catching up on email while not driving, nor at the new hotel on Saturday night.
In short, it was a fast. And like most fasts, it started out with a temptation or two to break the fast, but once I got into it, it was actually pretty easy. It was a Saturday, after all, and traveling made it that much easier.
I guess you could say it was a mini “giving this up for Lent” sort of thing in that it helped me to spend the extra time with the Lord. For instance, even though I was on the road, I still spent more time in solitude before getting in the car than I would have if I had fallen into the usual and customary boot up and surf the net mode.
On the other hand, trying to write in a journal vs. type was down right weird. Sure, I can handle one or two sentences, but whole journal entries? man! my hand started to ache, and talk about bad penmanship. An arthritic doctor using his left foot would be more legible.
Another thing about shutting down for a day: it made me feel more appreciative of having a computer. They can be a pain all right, but most of the world has never seen one let alone used one. It sure is cool to get huge volumes of information on demand, or communicate instantaneously!
All in all, it was a good experience. It fit right in with my never ending battle to dampen down some of the distractions in life and carve out some time in solitude or just simply to simplify a little.