going all still and quiet—and how that changes you.” ~Esther
Emery
I’ve only owned a smartphone since December. The day myhusband and I ventured into the Verizon store to make the purchase, I had a
very dark and bad attitude toward the sales clerk and technology in general. My computer’s screams felt
like more than enough distraction in my life. How would I ever focus and
function with the noise of a smartphone? But I wanted to be able to Facetime with my sons and receive texts that weren’t garbled on my old phone, among other things. I felt forced into this new, beeping,
pinging, ringing world where someone or something would have constant access to
interrupt me and my thought life anywhere at anytime. The world I love to abandon when I enter the refuge of my home now tags along in the new digital age,
and this private introvert does not always like all the company.
up the Internet for a year, a journey she chronicles in her beautifully written
memoir, What Falls from the Sky. As a successful playwright and theater
director, wife, and mother, one day she found her professional and personal life
starting to unravel. Many of us would seek out a counselor, change our
location, look for a new job—but Esther logged off the Internet and dove into
the silence. She took the drastic step of leaving behind ATMs, social media, and
email.
silence can be found in God, then it is fair to say that I found both at the
same time.”
Without the Internet controlling her life, she learned to
love her neighbors in her Massachusetts city, visit the library with her
children, buy books at Goodwill, use a phone book, read a paper map, shop at
brick and mortar stores. She stared longer at her children, played with them on
the floor, visited church for the first time in a very long time, and wrote
letters by hand.
She began to ask questions and wonder what happens when we leave
the digital world and open space and margin in our lives. I know for me I deepen and hear the voice of
God better when I allow more space and margin. I change, feeling a little less
angry, annoyed, inadequate. Esther made many of the same discoveries.
What happens when we find our validation somewhere other
than the false affirmation of the Internet? A hard question for many of us to
answer but worth the asking. The result for me is an internal warning saying I
should retreat from using the Internet so
much, exercising caution and awareness over its pull. I should try with all my
might to pull back from the constant barrage of information, communication, and false affirmation, fighting
the urge to scroll through my phone in a doctor’s waiting room or the lobby of a
restaurant, instead sitting in stillness and thought.
social media for Lent. I failed miserably. First I began checking Facebook because
some people use FB to reach me–but I vowed not to scroll. But then I was
scrolling. I’ve only been on Instagram when my husband told me my four sons
posted pictures of their brother trip to the mountains. (But I didn’t scroll)
Internet to woo me and distract me, waste my time, and destroy my attention
span, which seems to be decreasing by the week. As a writer, I used to be able
to write for hours without yielding to a distraction. Today I check my email
and Facebook constantly…and I hate this behavior.
making an intentional effort to resist the pull, however poor my efforts. I
want to take long walks without any noise, go on a drive without playing any
music, sit in a park with a paper book, and write a novel or a blog post without
reading people’s status. (And if I write a blog post, you can always receive
it by providing your email over at the right-hand side of your screen. Wink.)
to read her book, which you can buy here. But I will say that she now lives off
the grid in a yurt in Idaho with her husband and three children on three acres
of land. And that sounds like a life enriched by silence.
#WhatFallsFromtheSky