A Drifter Among Us

I sent my last tweet out Monday morning  at 7:24 a.m. and immediately felt anxiety over how I was going to make it through the week with no fb,twitter, or text messaging. I was bombarded with an array of thoughts such as: "Will anyone even text me?" "How will I know what's going on?" "How will I spend my downtime?" "Am I going to get sick of being productive?"

I spent the first few hours picking up and then putting down my phone as if I had some "phantom" message awaiting me. I could tell the habit was going to die hard.
**Monday: Read 3 chapters of a book, watched Cardinals game, didn't interact with anyone outside of work.
**Tuesday: Created a Budget, Read, Had family over for dinner where we discussed a variety of topics including social media's impact on family relations, problems with one another, frustrations, jobs, trips, further schooling, and caring for one another.
**Wednesday: Listed and sold household items on Craigslist. Read.
**Thursday: Did proofreading for the Journey, Worked on invitations for Mom's party, Called an old friend, Emailed from my computer Kristen while she is in Europe.
**Friday: Dinner with my parents, Made mojito's from home, watched "A River Runs Through It"
**Saturday: Read on the back deck, Went to my cousins graduation party, bookshopping at a Goodwill, home for the evening
**Sunday: Church in the morning, finished up a book and got a nice lobster tan, Afternoon drink with Josh, Self-analyzation in the evening.

I feel refreshed after a time of quieting all the noise in my life. To be honest I didn't miss what I gave up too terribly much. It took a little adjusting at first to stop picking up my phone and point the curser to my twitter app, but in the end I hardly touched my phone unless it rang or I called a friend. I've given thought to downgrading my phone plan. There is something troublesome to me that I'm so easily accessible to people. I guess that goes both ways.

I highly recommend others taking a week off and trying this. Some of you need it.

Mention to anyone with computer savvy that your laptop has somehow gotten slower over recent months and they’ll ask you the same thing: “have you defragmented your hard drive?” Defragmenting works by taking small slivers of information stored in various locations and consolidating them so that they’re in the same place on the drive and thus easier to access in larger chunks. Hard drive fragmentation is a great metaphor for - if not a literal manifestation of - what’s happened to our brains over years and years of processing small bursts of information. 2009 took fragmentation to a whole new level given the rise of Twitter and the social acceptance of texting people as a substitute to making phone calls.

That’s where the one week digital cleanse comes in. I’ll be defragmenting my mental and psychological hard drive during the first seven days of the new year, and I invite you all to participate.

The cleanse will begin at 9am on January 1. This gives everyone a chance to text and tweet their new year’s well wishes, and theoretically begins upon waking up the morning of January 1. The cleanse will end at 9am on January 8.

Guidelines:

*email only from laptop or desktop computers

*cell phones can only be used to make calls, and no text messages or e-mails are allowed - if you receive a text, you must reply in voice over the phone. E-mails must be returned from a laptop or desktop computer.

*no use of Twitter or any other social networking site - this includes reading as well as posting.

*no visiting of any entertainment or gossip sites. (No need to detail which ones - you know what they are.)

I floated the idea last week on Twitter to see if anyone could envision themselves doing this, and the responses were interesting; some said they could definitely do it, but many were resigned to the idea, calling it impossible. If it is impossible, than my theory is already proven and we’re in big trouble as a society.

This can be done, people. Do it with me. When we pop back up on the grid on January 8, let’s trade stories on what it felt like, how hard it was, and maybe how hard it actually wasn’t.

JM

A person who is honest about their personal failings and knows they desperately need the grace and love of God; someone more concerned about finding an intimate relationship with God than fulfilling the expectations of cultural Christianity.

And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” Exodus 14:13-14

A month back I read this verse while reading my way through the bible this year. And while it read pretty and powerful and oddly relevant, I tucked it away and continued on. Weeks came and went; life was good. I was feeling liberated from some of the pressures I had felt. Like a sponge to water, my issues had finally felt absorbed. And then - BAM!!! I was wrung out. Having been told something that sent me into an emotional coma for a day or so, I felt the helplessness that the people of Israel felt. What I went through was nothing I haven't felt before: Fear, Anxiety, Anger, Malice. The emotions were more intense this time. I couldn't fight for myself, I needed someone else to.

In that moment I couldn't see what the salvation of the Lord looked like. My emotions had temporarily blinded me. If I'm honest with you, and I think you deserve that, I've been living in fear for years. I had learned to mask it well to the casual observer. When, in my blindness, I was forced to deal with my fear, I learned how deep the roots of it had become.

Isn't it ironic the things we fear are the same things we respect? It just looks a little different. For instance, you cannot have a fear of heights without having a respect of how miniscule you are when towering 500 feet above something. Those who have a healthy fear (i.e. being afraid, not living in fear) are those who have proportionate veneration. So when contemplating fear, one must also give thought to where/who/what too much reverence is being given to.

In my comatose state, I reflected on this. I had just heard a sermon the previous Saturday regarding how affirmation idols (those people or things we seek affirmation from) can cause people to live in fear (being driven by their fear) and I was sure I was getting to the root of it. So as I sorted through my personal inventory, I identified that I value acceptance from people way too much. This is no surprise; I've written about it before here.

"Ok, great. I already know that about myself. So what's my fear? Why am I so driven to earn people's acceptance? Why am I wrecked when I don't recieve it?" My inner dialogue was revved up pretty rampant at that point. *sigh* "So what is it?"

Rejection.
Complete rejection.
The nothing-you-ever-do-will-be-good-enough-rejection.

"Wow... I need to see a counselor.....Where's my bourbon?"

Out of my fear of rejection I had built walls that, in return, had constructed rooms, many of which I was uncognizant of. My fear had driven me to shallowness in the relationships I was in. It had pushed many people away. The people that most wanted my attention were the people I avoided. I had returned the hurt that I felt. My fear had driven me into a viscous, repeating cycle. People reacted to me differently, which caused anger to swell up inside of me. My anger was a result of feeling the need to be in power at all times, and when I wasn't, bitterness and malice took control.

I'm just now understanding the extent of my brokenness.

Coming out of my "emotional coma," I felt a renewed peace about things. I wasn't going to heal if I didn't let go of the emotional baggage that was robbing me. The only thing in life worth fearing, is God. A healthy fear is caused by a healthy respect. Knowing that I'm accepted by God, not because of anything I did or can ever do, but on account of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. That's a sobering idea to let your heart take grasp of.

Anger towards people will kill you emotionally,spiritually, and physically. When you are fast to anger then something is wrong. It is usually a result of an underlying issue. For me it was a result of losing control of people's actions or their reaction to the things I said or did. The way to purge anger from your life is by showing kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness. That last one is hard for me. It's hard because it is a conscious decision to absorb the wrong done to you. BUT, having received forgiveness, it's wrong not to offer that myself.

Anxiousness is a byproduct of these things. The way you deal with anxiety is through prayer and a lumination of God's goodness.

 "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."-Phillipians 4:4-7

Fear not, stand firm, GROW A PAIR and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the FEAR, ANGER, NEGLECT, ANXIETY,  etc. whom you see today, you shall never see again.

These things were worked out for me in my time of solidarity. Maybe that's what the heart needs sometimes.

The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.