Unplug

Last Friday evening we unplugged. No phones. No computers. No video games. No television/movies.

If you know me well, you know that I have a love/hate relationship with technology. It's my bread and butter. God has blessed me with a pretty good understanding of how technology works (or DOESN'T work, in many cases). However - and I know this may sound funny - I have a huge respect for the Amish approach to adopting technology.

In general, the mainstream approach to any technology, be it computers, 3-D televisions, air conditioning, tractors, or GMO food crops, is to leap first, then clean up after the mess. We are often enamored with the whiz-bang of new technologies and can't wait to climb aboard. Then we try to figure out why our wives ran off with their Facebook lovers, why our kids are obese after playing video games all day, and why our husbands are addicted to porn.

The Amish, as I understand them, carefully evaluate technology from the perspective of how the technology will affect the community. For example, an Amish community may choose to avoid petroleum driven tractors and stick with horse-drawn plows for many reasons; The debt load that modern tractors and implements puts on a small family farmer is foolish in most cases. Heavy tractors compact the soil and make it less productive. Diesel-powered farm equipment allows for quicker harvest by fewer workers, but drives up unemployment and destroys the sense of community that is built when several families come together to help each other. The Amish are a people who recognize the value of inter-dependence instead of the buying in to the impossible dream of independence. But get this - each community may come to a different conclusion. What one Amish community may decide is verboten another may implement because the community functions in a different way. But regardless, they examine the affects together and make decisions together. They are skeptical first instead of accepting first.

So when "National Day of Unplugging" rolled around I couldn't wait to climb aboard. We try to regularly practice a fairly tech-free, commerce free sabbath anyway, but turning everything off was extreme even for us. When Jacob, my 13 year-old heard the news, he flatly declared "Well, I'm going to (insert friend's name here) for the weekend!"

But the weekend was great. We played games. We lit candles. Each family member made home-made, personalized pizzas (with home-made, from scratch pizza dough!) We went to bed early and got up late. We ate lots of good food. My 11-year old spontaneously screamed, at the top of his lungs "This is terrific!"

If I could encourage you to take anything away from this post, it would be this:

1. Carefully evaluate how you consume every kind of technology. How will it affect your family? How will it affect the way you interact with your neighbors? How does it make you feel?
2. Take a day off. Eat. Sleep. Rest. I promise God will keep the world spinning even if you don't check email, text messages or voice mail. Trust God to do what only He can do. (A great resource on Sabbath is The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel).

Do you take a day off? How much thought do you put into it? What does it look like? Tell us?