Technological Sabbath

Hey friends,

Last Sunday I went down to the Open Door in Highland Park. It's so very rare to have a time of worship where I'm not in charge of something, and so I've been meaning to make a habit out of going to the Open Door to just worship!

BJ gave a sermon about taking a Sabbath that was really quite good. Truth be told, taking a Sabbath is something I'm fairly good at. Mondays are sacred days. There is to be no meeting. There is to be no office visits. I think three times in the four years I've been at Westminster I've come into the office on Monday to pick something up, but I try to do so under cover of darkness where no one can see me or ask me a question or anything. Literally, Monday's are sacred for me. So I was going into this sermon as though it were all review.

Not so! BJ encouraged those of us who are already taking a Sabbath to take it a step further. One of his specific suggestions struck me right between the eyes: What if you took a technology Sabbath?

I'm not sure if you can comprehend the difficulty that was posed to me in that suggestion. Ever since I got my iPhone and I could e-mail and Tweet and Facebook and even blog from anywhere I darn well felt like it, I was hooked. Addiction was hard and heavy. So, I make a vow to turn my e-mail accounts off, to not check Twitter or Facebook, and to only use my laptop to work on making music (more on this aspect of a Sabbath later...).

I survived!

Actually, it was quite pleasant. There were no angry e-mails waiting for me when I got to work this morning complaining about my sluggish response time. The J-Blog didn't fall apart without a Monday post (which, honestly, when was the last time I posted on a Monday anyway...). I didn't have hoards of angry tweets waiting for me. Truth be told, almost no one noticed I was gone.

Moreover, the lack of attention paid to technological vices freed up some time to do what I truly love to do on a Sabbath day. Ed and I went hunting in the morning. I spent the late morning/early afternoon song writing and recording a couple of things for a project I'm working on. I read this goofy thing composed of many pages bound together, I think it was called a book. I spent time with Sarah. What I thought would be a test of my endurance actually turned out to enrich my Sabbath experience.

Are you taking a Sabbath? If you are, could you take it a step further and take a rest from something distracting in your day?

Godspeed,

J