Go Offline

The pastor at EnCompass started a new series today on "Jesus in the Suburbs", trying to relate His message to where and how we live.

As he said today, it's not so hard to envision Jesus in the heart of the city. You can see Him reaching out to the homeless, the drug-dependent, the outcasts, the despairing, the hoods, the whores. You can see Him wrangling with city officials and the leaders of inner-city churches. He'd be in His element, healing people, inspiring justice, working for acceptance.

It's also not hard to picture Jesus in jeans and flannel shirt out in a rural setting, singing to the cows during morning milking, working up a sweat in the haymow with the neighbors, talking with the boys at the grain elevator about the quality of the harvest, walking through the fields giving life lessons about how things grow, sitting on the porch at night loving the quiet.

But .. Jesus in the suburbs? Stuck in traffic, or running between soccer games and music lessons, or worrying about how to get a decent dinner on the table? Um.. no. Somehow it doesn't work.

So his first sermon text got right to the busy-ness issue with the story of Mary and Martha, where He says: "Martha, Martha... you're worried and upset about so many things" and basically tells her to sit still, stop all her fussing, and be more like her lazy-ass sister. ;)

The pastor suggested that we allow ourselves to be bored. No other species is even capable of boredom, as far as we know. It's a perfectly human state to be in, may actually be theraputic, and something that we ought to welcome now and then. :)

And all the while he was preaching, I kept hearing this nagging little Voice in my head. You know the One. Or .. at least I do. He doesn't do this often, so when He does, I have to pay attention. He said

"Go offline."

That's it. I checked again to see if I heard Him right. mmhmm.

"Go offline."

Would you mind elaborating a bit? I'm slow.

"Go offline."

He rarely does this, either, so even more important.. He elaborated.

"Not forever; a couple of hours a day will do. Just shut off your music, close your IM session, put the Mac to sleep, so you don't hear the ding of new email. You don't need the constant stimuli - it's okay to be bored. Go offline."

Wow. Okay. I guess I'll try it. Maybe while I'm studying? I'll try to figure out a time.

Thanks for the advice. I'll.. give it a try. :)