Sometimes things that seem unrelated aren’t really at all. For example:
1. My computer died.
2. I braided my hair.
I’m having a hard time blogging lately, and it is precisely because my computer died. All of the systems I had in place to make blogging easier, faster and more fun are all enclosed in the gray tomb still underneath the yellow table, now gathering fluffs of dust, until I am able and willing to make the long arduous trek to the stressful shiny city to go speak to some genius in a bar. How am I here now, you ask? Well, thanks to some generous grandparents, we finally got ourselves a new family computer after decades of hand-me-downs that would limp along until the next one showed up. But this machine is all new and I don’t know what happened to the features I was used to (Really, Apple? Your new Pages application stinks!!), and, besides, Tom has kept me plodding along on getting my book ready. Seriously, if it weren’t for my husband, that little ditty would still be on the “oh I hope someday to publish something somehow in some manner” shelf of dreams…AND it’d still be on my dead computer that by some manner bordering on impossible he was able to retrieve it from.
So my computer died and I braided my hair. Because when the thing you spend your free time on–or even your stolen time–is suddenly unavailable you end up with this weird little void. No “quick” Google search. No “just a peek” at social media. No “I’m just gonna look up…” or “Wonder what’s happening to…” or “What’s in my inbox” or, by far the most terrifying of moments: “I’m bored! Ack! What is this feeling?! What do I DOOOOOO???!!!!”
Recently, I had picked up this little used book on being chic or something like that, and found it somewhat similar to my message on being present. One of the chapters was on different ways to do hair, and I had just told my daughters that I was about to give up on growing it long (oh, the moaning of lament!). Fine, I figured. I’ll try one of the styles without Pinterest pictures to help me (grumble, grumble, stupid computer…).
So I did. It involved braids. It was cute. Despite my attitude. Hm.
You know, sometimes a media or computer fast is purposeful and planned. And sometimes that sort of fast is prodded by the Lord when you may not be willing to cut off that hand. Either way, when it happens, the void may surprise you and leave you a little perplexed. Take it as an opportunity to check your heart and your time. Take it as an invitation to bake bread, take a bike ride, or–yes–even try braids.
You may end up with something more beautiful. Even if you can’t currently post pictures of it.
Blessings,
Do not be ruled by technology!!! Every Thursday I have a technology free day, it is liberating . Have been doing this for two years now and find that I don’t miss it that much. The lure of Pinterest has waned , don’t do Facebook or Twitter and my journal gets written up by hand in a note book until the next days when it gets transcribed..
I have finally stopped trying to grow my hair long again! When my eldest child was born in 1971 I could sit on it and it was a glorious shade of ‘titian red’ and very thick and curly. But the weather was so very, very hot and it was soo heavy so it went, from long to very short! Managed to grow it long again once…then I went grey and looked like the ‘wicked witch of the north’ so it has been short ever since.
We don’t actually need much in our lives technology wise do we , if you think about it, technology is just there to distract us from our thoughts and things we don’t want to face up to…such as…life!!
Now I’m off to sit outside and commune with nature and feed the birds. Big hug xxx
Oh how I miss my auburn hair, too! Youth is fleeting, is it not? Now I ponder things like adding lavender or magenta 😉
I’m inspired by your tech-free day! I just listened to another talk about her Friday-Sunday tech-free days and I think something like that would be very, very good. After all, the postal service still delivers on two of those days 🙂