The New Wilderness

It seems most everything gets  lost in the shadow of the economic news these days, but driving home from work, I heard a wonderful news item about pending legislation to designate more than 2 million acres of land as official wilderness. 

There’s a scene in the movie Dead Poets Society in which the Robin Williams character tells his students that science, law, and finance are all necessary to sustain life, but art, poetry, love… these are the things we live for. In my estimation, wilderness belongs in the latter category as well. 

It’s wonderful to know that in a time when financial wealth is diminishing, we can still recognize wealth in its other forms, and respect t it accordingly.

In-Person Minutes

I resisted getting a cell phone for a long time. In fact, I never really proactively got a cell phone. My father, the Engineer, works for a telecommunications company, and this just baffled him. And because I often drove the distance between St. Louis and Nashville alone, at night, it also made him nervous, so I got a phone, and he added me to his family plan. 

As is the case for many people, I began as something of a technology contrarian, but my resolve has steadily eroded. I now work for an international organization, and a good chunk of the human interaction I engage in most days is via email or conference call. But I have held my ground about some things. I refuse to in any way attach my cell phone to my body. I recently uninstalled an IM application from my office computer in silent protest, but I don’t know that I’ll be able to get away with that for long. In all truth, the technologies that enable us to stay connected to one another have been Godsends in a lot of ways. But I also feel the pressing importance of drawing a personal line in the sand. 

A post at Soul Shelter outlines some great values when it comes to using cell phones: looking at the world and not the phone, spending “in-person minutes” with people, willingly disconnecting.

My additions are: take real vacations and real time off, recognize when technology is enabling me to connect with someone and experience the world vs subtracting from those aims, insist, sometimes, on only doing one thing at a time.

Many Lives

The Nurse had surgery a few days ago for a torn ACL. Though I was in town staying with him the weekend before his surgery, I had to leave to go back to work just before the big event. He had plenty of help. The Deacon was in town with his family, and numerous friends and family live nearby. It wasn’t that he needed me to be there. But I wanted to be there. It was tough to leave. 

As is the case for many of us, my friends and family are spread out all over the country. In a way it’s nice; no matter where I go there’s a good chance I know someone who doesn’t live that far away. But I also find myself pulled in many directions at once. Even the Photographer’s house is enough of a drive to make it tough to spend time together most weeknights, when I get home at 6 or 7 and he gets up for work at 5 the next morning.

Coming back from a trip to visit family recently, I felt the familiar sad exhaustion that comes from trying to live many different lives within this one small lifetime – a life centered on my family, another focused on careers (I have more than one, a difficulty in and of itself), another fed by learning and adventure. It’s a wonderful thing to have such resources, such magnificent choices. But I haven’t yet found a way to live this one life, and live it well.