If you know me, you know I haven’t been away from the computer much this Lent.  Here we are coming up to Palm Sunday and I really only made it a couple of days without email, Facebook, etc.  I decided right off that in this day and age, giving up the computer is like saying you’re not going to answer the phone for 40 days.  Whether cell phone or land line (and yes, my brothers recently made fun of me because not only do we still have a land line, but our phone actually has a cord), no one would do that.  Would they?

Well, I realized I’m not Jesus and can’t go off into the wilderness for 40 days.  At least not yet, maybe someday I will.  And while I completely and utterly failed at my quest in practice, in theory I did change the way I am doing things over the past several weeks of Lent. 

I have been more intentional about quiet time.  And about thinking about spiritual things.  And about looking my family in the eye for more of the day.  When I make breakfast and have tea with Rose in the morning, the computer is safely tucked out of sight and turned off.  When George comes home in the afternoon, I try to stop reading and talk to him.  And there are many hours in the day when I’m taking care of my daycare baby (soon to be, babies), or chatting with Elijah about books and other “educational” stuff. 

So that’s all good.

I’m also learning to do only what I really ENJOY online.  That is, not so much bad news and political arguing (always tempting and hard to resist but I got tired of the angry feelings that come with it).  And MORE time reading uplifting blogs, news stories and Facebook postings from friends and organizations I like.  I often say, I’ve always been a HUGE reader and before the internet it was novels, magazines (always tons of magazines) and newspapers.  Now, I get most of that with way less trees cut down for paper.  I’m trying to find the same “feelings” online that I felt while reading the hard copies of things–pretty pictures in magazines can now be found on blogs and certain websites, for example.  I’m searching those things out, instead of reading about the latest conspiracy theory (that got old during the Bush administration, didn’t it?  And now it’s getting really old under Obama). 

I am more interested in Facebooking than blogging these days.  I consider Facebook a briefer, more interactive form of blogging but boy would I be sad if all my favorite bloggers gave it up.  And that is to say, you may not see me here much but I’m still around.  And if you have a blog, I’m likely reading it!