Yesterday, I didn’t go to any of the following websites:
- http://www.gmail.com
- http://www.facebook.com
- http://www.twitter.com
- http://www.yahoo.com
- http://www.ebay.com
- http://www.wordpress.com
Those are probably the websites you’re most likely to see if you checked the history on my Mac on any given day. But yesterday, I didn’t go to any of them because my Lenten Experience Calendar. It said something along the lines of “Don’t use any technology today: computers, internet, music, video games, or TV.” Now of course I had to use computers at work, but I resolved not to use any of those items for any personal or recreational reasons.
Last fall, I gave up Facebook for three months and it really wasn’t hard to do at all. I think I might give it up again soon. But yesterday was actually quite hard for some reason. I had things I wanted to check on eBay, I couldn’t check my personal e-mail account that’s on Gmail and I really wanted to, and I found myself really looking forward to “tomorrow” when I could get back on these things.
Why is that? That really shouldn’t be the case, I don’t think. It probably just speaks to how much that technology is really a part of our lives, but I really didn’t expect it to be very hard…and it was, actually.
I did cheat in one way, though. I listened to Mark Driscoll as I ran yesterday on my iPod. (C’mon it’s a sermon!!) And one of the things he said made a lot of sense. He coined a new word, as he does sometimes: “Methodolatry.” You can probably guess what that is…making an idol out of the “way I do things.” It’s not right unless it’s the way I do it. And obviously, that’s the wrong way to go about things. Maybe technology (even now WITHOUT an iPhone) is more a part of my methodolatry than I thought it was.
Johnathon Eltrevoog 