How we live it

I am sitting here in my bedroom and I've already got the electric blanket heating up to get my bed nice and cozy and warm. Yes, it is October 22 and any true northerner will look at me like I'm crazy for the fact that I already have my heating blanket out, but I'm from Florida and to me, a night that's gonna be in the 30s is cold.

I think that one of the tragedies of living in our day and age is that we are so ridiculously overstimulated, and possibly overconnected. We are also amazingly sedentary. All of this makes our schedules jam-packed with things that could be avoided if we would just simplify, or if we went back to an old-fashioned way of life. For instance, my brain cannot quiet down tonight because this week I have read at least ten major international news stories that are troubling to me, gone to a presentation on human trafficking and the sex industry, started a biography on Mother Teresa and another nonfiction work on Celtic Christianity, read over ten different blogs with topics ranging from politics to health issues, read an email inbox full of correspondence awaiting my reply, tackled serious issues of the Kingdom in multiple small group settings, tried to balance working for Bryan with volunteering my time elsewhere, spent quality time with Joshua, enjoyed nature, crammed in exercise, received a pile of letters which I really want to respond to, done chores (although I've forsaken laundry), watched some television, commented on people's Facebook pictures or profiles in order to keep relationships alive, called my family and friends who live elsewhere, blogged every day, composed a new piece on the piano, and spent time with the Lord Almighty. Maybe someone somewhere is impressed by this list, but frankly, I am not. I am exhausted. And there is still more that I wish I could be doing.

Supposedly life is all about balance?

I long for a simpler day and a simpler way of doing life.

We have invented phones, cars, palm pilots, Blackberrys, iPhones, computers, microwaves, and a million other gadgets to make life easier, more efficient, and faster. But maybe we've sped up too much.

For spring break of my junior year of college, I went to stay in a cabin in the woods of western North Carolina for a week. There was no cell phone reception. There was no internet. I think the television had one fuzzy channel. There was a porch, a view, and a fireplace. There were about twelve of us there, and we had nothing to do but cook meals and eat together, talk together, play board games together, and stargaze together. The days passed by so slowly at first that I didn't know what to do. But it was the most refreshing, enjoyable vacation that I think I've ever had.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to be a farmer. I wouldn't have to cram in an hour or more of exercise every day because I'd be burning calories all day in the fields. I wouldn't have to set aside time to enjoy nature, because I'd be outside all day.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to be internet and cell phone free. I wouldn't be able to fritter time away by stalking people on Facebook (maybe, I would actually visit them or write them a letter to see what's going on in their life instead of surmising it through their latest photo album). I wouldn't have the pressure of having to be constantly available by email or phone. Have you noticed how annoyed we all get when someone doesn't answer their cell phone when we call them? It used to be that if you called someone's house phone and they didn't answer, they weren't home. Now, everyone is expected to be at everyone else's beck and call every moment of the day.

Is the accessability of information good for us? Of course it is, in some ways. It is good for accountability, for cooperation, and for education. But I have found that it might just be too much for me. The speaker at the human trafficking presentation I went to tonight described something he called the "paralyzation of despair." I read these international news stories of crisis after crisis in India, Georgia, Iraq, Zimbabwe and that numbness seeps over me. It's too big. There is so much pain, so much suffering, so much abuse in the world. What am I, sitting in my comfy office chair in Asheville, North Carolina, going to do about the 25,000 children in the world that died of starvation today alone? How can I possibly help?

There are so many causes to plead. There is hunger, education, sex trafficking, poverty, clean water, genocide, child soldiery, civil war, disease... and then of course there is the matter of the spiritual lives of all of these people. I desperately want to do something to help in all of those situations. But I'm one person. When I try to look at all of that, I become overwhelmed and the paralyzation of despair overtakes me and I am left sitting in my office chair in a stupor until I click over to Facebook and see who has gone on vacation in the Bahamas this week.

Of course, I'm a hypocrite. Without the internet, I wouldn't be lambasting its evils on this blog. I suppose the point that I'm trying to make is that we have to choose. I think that the people that really made big differences in the world gave their all to one cause. William Wilberforce. Martin Luther King, Jr. Mother Teresa. As much as I want to be about remedying every evil there is, I think that if I'm going to overcome the paralyzation of despair and move into action, I'm going to have to choose one and focus on it. I'm also going to have to choose what to do with my time, and not expect myself to be Wonder Woman.

Maybe it's okay to be slow? To simplify?

I will have to let this ruminate in my brain a bit more... perhaps at an earlier hour when I am capable of processing my thoughts a bit more clearly... and let you know what I've decided to change in my own life, if anything.

Oh, if only I could forsake sleep altogether and do everything I wish to do!