For Wilshire Baptist Church
Saturday was the National Day for Unplugging, a day promoted as a time to put down your digital devices, push back from the computer and turn off the flat screen and go do something more physically real and tangible. Actually it was from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, which made it a sort of digital sabbath.
Anyway, while I was still plugged in I boldly announced on Facebook and Twitter that I was going to unplug and I suggested that friends and followers do the same. I shamelessly suggested they read a book and maybe a specific book, but that’s another story. Still, I was serious about unplugging and I did unplug for those 24 hours, but I had to backtrack a little and allow some exemptions. Much of what I do involves people and that requires communication by cell phone and email. The morning before I unplugged I emailed a church deacon schedule for the next quarter and people began to respond. And I called and emailed to schedule interviewees for some magazine assignments and I needed to be present if they responded. And my cell phone is my only connection to parents and I needed to be available. So I wasn’t completely unplugged. However, I didn’t look at Facebook or Twitter, or news or entertainment web sites, or the sites that monitor book sales and my lowly place in that world. I don’t do games so I didn’t miss anything there.
So yes, I did unplug for the most part and from sunset to sunset it was wonderful. Saturday morning we served breakfast at a women’s shelter, and later we had brunch with family and dinner with friends. And in between we ran errands and did physical work inside and outside the house and didn’t clog our minds and souls with useless information and meaningless trivia.
This season of Lent means many things to many people, and it can be a sort of “unplugging” if we want it to be. We can set aside distractions and frivolous diversions and focus on things that are real. Looking back at my brief unplugging, what I see that was most real was people. Not people at the other end of a Twitter feed or email chain. Not people who are “trending” or “failing” on Facebook or Instagram. Not celebrities with wardrobe malfunctions and politicians with conflicts of interest. But real, flesh-and-blood people that I could see and touch, that I could hug or shake hands with, that I could listen to or play with.
There are just a few more weeks of Lent. How will you spend them? Will you stay plugged in to things that really don’t matter so much, or will you unplug and make room for people? Will you unplug and make room for God? Isn’t that what God did for us? God through Jesus made room and made way for us.
And what about life after Lent and Easter? Will we plug back into the noise and chaos of our culture or will we stay plugged in to God? And what of the ultimate “plugging in” that came after Easter at Pentecost with the coming of the Holy Spirit? Will we make room on our crowded grid?