How do I navigate my relationship with the internet?

the monthly letter

This morning I walked the half-mile loop adjacent to our property, and it was like a tonic to my soul. I wasn’t walking somewhere. I didn’t break a sweat. This wasn’t my exercise. Objectless meandering did wonders for my day.

Did you know it is autumn?

I ask because some days I wouldn’t. Some days, between teaching nubby fingers to hold a pencil and teenagers to drive … between paying medical bills online and scheduling dentist appointments … between wiping the counters for the seventeenth time in a day and responding to texts … I might forget it was autumn.

The brilliant orange outside my bedroom window gets overlooked for the grocery app on my phone; I need ingredients for dinner more than I need a whiff of the autumn wind, apparently.

A fifteen-minute walk afforded me more exhilaration than the fifteen or twenty-four or thirty-seven hours before … and I remember it’s autumn. And no still-feeling human being would ever want to overlook an autumn. The thought of missing these glimpses of beauty (of Him!), perpetually, makes me want to toss my phone into the creek along that path.

But then what about responding to the text from our piano teacher? And finding directions to Eden’s friend’s house? And listening to my new favorite Bible app?

I know I’m not alone in this love-hate relationship with the digital world. (And I haven’t even mentioned social media here.) Like many of you, I read articles and I hear soundbites and I participate in conversations with thoughtful people about how to navigate this for myself … and how to help my children navigate this as they inch themselves towards being launched into the world where few under 60 still own a landline. But I am no expert and am not offering an expert opinion here.

I am just offering my fingerprint on this conversation:

A year and a half ago, as the world tilted and my creative, writing mind felt stunned, I started praying for a way to continue to be “me”: earnest, thoughtful, quirky — but opinionated and a natural leader who still desires to impact the world around her with God … and do it online. (Yes, this was after a month of preparing to jump ship, own an analog phone, and resign to only write in my journal again for the rest of my life.)

Simultaneously, as a consumer — one who loves to read, learn, and research—I asked Him for help in how I consume. Were the soundbites growing me? Was my attention span increasing with my phone usage? What sources were leading me to Him … rather than a better version of me?

Out of those prayers came a private space for my writing and leadership, where I could be who I am and create the kind of content I’d also want to consume. Several hundreds of us have gathered here for a year, now, around monthly topics of growth in God amid this murky world. I’ve filmed videos with Nate, and also alone, just for this group, and (by my assessment) these people are getting the best of my writing, next to the content I put in my books. My mantra has been: less effort crafting pithy words for Instagram and Facebook and more investment into those who want to be invested in.

This is the next best thing to throwing my phone in the creek (‘cause I still need to place my grocery order this afternoon 😉 ): being intentional about what I consume … and being intentional about what I create and for whom.

For a few more days, SOAR will available be at a discounted rate. We have an “open” period where we discount this group twice per year — and this week is that period.

I’d suggest the same thing to you that I’m asking Him and of myself as I consider other opportunities like this. Ask Him: is this for me, for right now?

And if so, I’ll see you over there. 😊