Media fast day 2

I just realized this may be the first time I have done a media fast. I have cut out tv, but social media and games weren't a thing before, and in the past I just let Elaine do it.  I noticed today improved cognitive ability. I am making connections and remembering thought experiments I had put aside. Perhaps media saturation really does make us dumber.

Some things I have observed in Elaine:

• She touches me more. She speculates that this may be because her security blanket - her phone is not in her hands. 

• She talks to me more deeply. Last night she described to me the plot of a book she read with interest and excitement. 

• We're both up and about earlier, getting more done around the house and on our projects. It's also nice to hear her share what she is learning and get her input on what I study. 

Quiet evening

Without tv to occupy us this evening I read a chapter of The Hobbit to the family. We left off in the middle some months ago, falling away from the practice of family reading time. Having nothing else to do does wonders for your schedule.

Settling in.

I noticed a greater ability to focus while reading. I read three chapters in my children's spirituality book in a sitting. The combination of mental excitement and sometimes dry intellectual material has made this a difficult book to sit with. I feel I could have read even more but for another pleasant   surprise, my guitar called me to play it. I have heard its call on previous nights, but late while watching our routine rgimin of tv. 

Elaine is napping. She was reading a dry textbook, undoubtably sleep won out. She is cute when she sleeps. 

Boredom

The boredom of not using our digital devices in our accustomed manner has driven us to other pursuits: reading, cleaning, working on various projects. So far I have experienced this in starts and fits. As yet I have not settled into a comfortable concentration. 

New Media Fast

Elaine and I have begun a media fast for this week and I have decided to keep a journal exploring the experience. 

Elaine said this morning, "So, what do I have to do to be less lazy?" 

"Take a media fast?" I suggested.

"No way!" was her immediate response. 

Elaine has been exploring the power of media fasting for some time and is planning to write her capstone project on it to complete her masters. 

This media fast will last today (Monday) through Friday.  It will include social media, games and tv.  We will exclude phone calls, text, email and projects related to school and work. 

We turned our phones to do-not-disturb mode, and made sure to allow phone calls, but found this still allowed notifications from our games and so forth to get through so we had to shut some of those off manually.  The badge icons drive me nuts (the little numbers on the apps that shows notifications are waiting.) I had to turn those off for a few things too so I wouldn't be tempted to check them. 

Perhaps the fast would be easier to accomplish and more effective if we just put our phones away, but that experiment will have to wait for another time.

Spiritual Direction Resources

Flying Jesus Day

I believe …
Jesus Christ…
was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended into hell;
on the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty;
from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I think Ascension Day brings completion to our meditation on the Paschal Mystery.  This is the work of spiritual formation. It is the stuff of discipline that brings us to transformation. With Christ we were crucified, died and were buried.  We have died to ourselves and have new meaning brought to our every little death.  We also enter into the Paschal Mystery when with Christ we can safely descend into the hell of our past pain and traumas.  I remember reading Parker Palmer talk about the mystery of depression.  He quoted Annie Dillard saying we are invited to ride the monsters all the way down off the rim of the world to find God.   Then the Paschal Mystery invites us to look up.

I love to gaze at the sky.  I love a clear blue day with a few high cumulus clouds.  They give me a sense of how high is the sky. I realize that I am looking through literally miles of air. There is a height to the sky. I was telling a group of kids in chapel this yesterday and a girl interrupted me laughing and said, “You’re wearing green slippers.”

“No,” I said, “They’re shoes.” Imagine thinking my immensely cool Toms were slippers!

I went on to tell them about how I love to look up at night at the stars. I mean, if you think you get a sense of distance from the clouds, imagine how far you are seeing when you look at the galaxies! And to think that is where Jesus went. I mean where do we always think of heaven as being?

Again the girl laughs at my slippers.  “But we’re supposed to be looking up not down at my slippers (I mean shoes),” I quipped. Then I remembered what Dallas Willard said about the Jewish conception of the heavens.  “So why did Jesus go into the heavens?” I asked.  “So that he could send us the Spirit and show us that he would always be near us, because the heavens start way up at the stars and galaxies and come right down under my green slippers.”

Ascension takes the Paschal Mystery and leaves us looking up. We learn to let go and yet live in a spirit of expectation. “This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11b NIV).  In about 10 days we get a glimpse of that Paschal reality as our guarantee, the Holy Spirit, is shed abroad in our hearts.

A Blessing For My Neighborhood

It is a cool day, yet the air is thick with dew. The clouds drift to the east in patches of light and dark. They are surprisingly fast. Only a slight breeze stirs the tops of the trees that line the street. A jumble of cars park under the trees in front of close fitting houses. The rain threatens, but children continue to play in protest, bouncing basketballs down the sidewalk or threading bicycles between cars. The porch on a day such as this is an attempt at comfort in the midst of confusion. The confusion of jumbled parked cars mirrors the jumble of clouds drifting off in the eastern sky. Even the direction is wrong; the clouds seem to be running away from their home in the sunset. The birds seem angry at one another as they chatter in the branches, trying to assert their territory.

A car with the horn of a train blasts at a couple of preschool children playing at the end of a drive way. The woman driving echoes the blast,

“Where the f*** is your mama?!”

“I don’t know,” the by replies take a step toward the road.

“Get the f*** out of the road!” The woman blasts back. “What’s wrong with you! These two are playing in the f***ing road!” she blasts in the direction of an unseen neighbor. And she is gone, apologizing to the other drivers, and cursing the children.

Is there something in the close fitting houses, in the oppressive clouds, in the unrefreshing breeze that is affecting us today? Is something external making birds and neighbors alike flare with anger? Or is it something within? Do we overflow with pain and contempt, heavy with it like the humid air?

Father, I offer this blessing for my neighborhood. May the streets here lined with trees and close houses be filled with joy. May the chatter of birds and squirrels mix with the giggles of children. May neighbor smile at neighbor and feel the knots of brotherhood constrain their hearts. May the transforming power of Christ lift the oppression that hangs over my street like the dense cloudbank that threatens rain. Tear open the sky! Bless Bay City.

My Holy Week

"I may never pass this way again."

I kept telling myself this as I went from church to church. When I am attached again to a congregation, how would I be as free to hang out with other churches?

 Maundy Thursday, I missed my chance to go to St. Alban's healing service.  The kids swimming lessons kept us too late.  So we had communion at our community dinner. That was great, but we should have had a foot washing.

Good Friday, I felt the sorrow and needed a service. (I have been accused of being a church addict this week.)  We missed the noon time services, but I ran into Pastor Isaac Chung from Westminster Presbyterian at Populace Coffee, and they were having a 7:00 Tenebre service that Ella and I went to.  Ella was very impressed with the progressive darkening of the sanctuary and our leaving by our lighted candles.

Saturday I spent with the folks at Trinity Episcopal church. This was the first Easter Vigil service I have been to.  It is similar to praying vigils at the monastery.  Communion and the word made this service awesome and got me dreaming of doing a vigil service that actually lasted all night.

Sunday morning was busy. I went to the sunrise service at Carroll Park.  This is put on every year by the youth at First Presbyterian. The service started at 6:45.  I loved watching the clouds light up with reds as the sun rose in the East, while the moon hung large and orange in the West. Another great feature of this service was the family friendly nature, with an egg hunt, donuts, and hot chocolate and coffee to drive away the chill.

Since it was still early I headed back to Westminster for their 8:00 service. Then home for breakfast where I discovered that the daughter of our church planting partners was in the hospital in Midland receiving an appendectomy.  Elaine grabbed some flowers from the flower bed and we took off for the hospital on our way to church.  The kids went with Grandma, and met us at church.

Sharing Holy Week with so many congregations as a stranger made me really appreciate the body of Christ in its vastness and diversity.  All these disparate people were celebrating the same reality of the resurrection.  I am grateful to be a part of such a body and rich tradition.

Hosanna!

This Palm Sunday I was struck by the power behind this word.  Hosanna is a cry meaning "save now, I beg you!"  That this cry of desperation is also the cry of exultation the crowds shout, appropriating Psalm 118, as Jesus enters the city hit me.

Sunday night I went to the College and Career Connection at CCC with much stress. I am underemployed and finances are getting to a place of hopelessness. Yet, here I am to worship with a bunch of fiery brands for whom worship is a thing of righteous abandon.  Hosanna became for me the cry of abandon it was for the crowd that day Jesus rode into town. Save me I beg! For you are the King!  You are the one who owns the cattle on a thousand hills! You have all provision and can supply my family's every need! You are worthy to be king of my life! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!  Blessed is the Kingdom come!  All of that is wrapped up in the cry Hosanna! 

What a way to start Holy Week!