When I was a boy, we visited family each year in Southern Alberta, Canada. Their ranch was in an area where the Porcupine Hills met the Alberta Prairie and abutted the Livingstone Rocky Mountain Range. This was God’s country! I would rise early in the morning and climb the hills, from the river valley below, to watch the earliest rays of the sun display all the colors of those mountains. I felt the Lord! I felt part of His creation! And joy filled my heart.
Today such moments just might be disturbed by the need to immediately post a photo and comment on social media! These precious moments between the Creator and creature are as fleeting as the sunrise. These fleeting moments are fractured by invasive technologies that demand our attention and draw us away from “the moment”. And yet, we know deep in our souls “the moment” is what we desire.
For me, as I move to retirement, I recognize thirty years of the internet has only increased my lust to know. I am in constant contact with screens and literally force fed information by those who design programs to grab my attention. Rare is the individual who has broken free from the internet, which I now call The Beast. I am trying to recreate “the moments” I experienced as a boy. But how? How do I master technology so I control it rather than it controlling me? Is this possible? Or do we simply live in a new paradigm and the old way of relating to creation is gone because of The Beast.
One way I will experiment with setting myself free is to return to penmanship. The connection between mind and hand and pen and paper brings me joy. Writing by hand allows one time to think. It is not as efficient in producing volumes; but maybe volumes is not what we need! We don’t need speed; we need to slow down; to put on the brakes. A pen in hand does this. The world has been changed by letters, written by the human hand, from jails. Gandhi wrote from jail and freed India from British rule! St. Paul wrote Epistles! Martin Luther King wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail. Prison gave them isolation from distraction and time to focus and create. It set them free. Perhaps blocks of time with pen and paper can also set us free from the technological prisons that prevent “The Moment”!
Beautifully expressed Mark. What a childhood you had! Going slow while also understanding technology is the way forward for me. An hour or two of mediation is all we need - to be back in the moment.
I would love to ask you something, please check your direct message..
Arjuna :
Tell me of those who live in wisdom,
Ever aware of the Self, O Krishna;
How do they talk, how sit, how move about?
Sri Krishna:
They live in wisdom
Who see themselves in all and all in them,
Whose love for the Lord of Love has consumed
Every selfish desire and sense craving
Tormenting the heart. Not agitated
By grief or hankering after pleasure,
They live free from lust and fear and anger.
When I was a boy, we visited family each year in Southern Alberta, Canada. Their ranch was in an area where the Porcupine Hills met the Alberta Prairie and abutted the Livingstone Rocky Mountain Range. This was God’s country! I would rise early in the morning and climb the hills, from the river valley below, to watch the earliest rays of the sun display all the colors of those mountains. I felt the Lord! I felt part of His creation! And joy filled my heart.
Today such moments just might be disturbed by the need to immediately post a photo and comment on social media! These precious moments between the Creator and creature are as fleeting as the sunrise. These fleeting moments are fractured by invasive technologies that demand our attention and draw us away from “the moment”. And yet, we know deep in our souls “the moment” is what we desire.
For me, as I move to retirement, I recognize thirty years of the internet has only increased my lust to know. I am in constant contact with screens and literally force fed information by those who design programs to grab my attention. Rare is the individual who has broken free from the internet, which I now call The Beast. I am trying to recreate “the moments” I experienced as a boy. But how? How do I master technology so I control it rather than it controlling me? Is this possible? Or do we simply live in a new paradigm and the old way of relating to creation is gone because of The Beast.
One way I will experiment with setting myself free is to return to penmanship. The connection between mind and hand and pen and paper brings me joy. Writing by hand allows one time to think. It is not as efficient in producing volumes; but maybe volumes is not what we need! We don’t need speed; we need to slow down; to put on the brakes. A pen in hand does this. The world has been changed by letters, written by the human hand, from jails. Gandhi wrote from jail and freed India from British rule! St. Paul wrote Epistles! Martin Luther King wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail. Prison gave them isolation from distraction and time to focus and create. It set them free. Perhaps blocks of time with pen and paper can also set us free from the technological prisons that prevent “The Moment”!
Beautifully expressed Mark. What a childhood you had! Going slow while also understanding technology is the way forward for me. An hour or two of mediation is all we need - to be back in the moment.
I would love to ask you something, please check your direct message..