Leanne Shawler, Artist

I haven't written much this Lent. My heart wasn't really in it after one of my dogs died. It felt like I had to write about it, or something. It is Easter now. The Lord is risen! Do I forget what I practiced (or not) in Lent?  I had more than one Lenten discipline of unplugging. The others? Lent Madness: stuck it out to the end with a decreasing level of enthusiasm -- not in the mood for the silliness really, although I was very happy Charles Wesley won the Golden Halo. I missed two days of voting due to being sick with a bad cold. Dancing: barely made it out of the gate. A couple of days and I abandoned it. Couldn't tell you why. A case of having too many new disciplines to remember to do probably. Sh'ma Daily: I made it into the fifth week before I stopped. The bad cold and grief did it in. I would fall asleep in bed chanting it too, so not entirely sure how many of them were "completed" :). There are 50 days of Easter, ending in ...

I did, very briefly, consider making this a rhyming post. First, my definition of unplugging meant no computer, no iPhone. I could use my iPod to play music but couldn't plug it into the computer to change up the playlists. I still have Christmas on my iPod, which is a pretty clear suggestion of how rarely I update it anyway. An opinion piece in the New Yorker posted back toward the beginning of Lent got me started writing this post. Basically, the article, entitled "The Pointlessness of Unplugging" , goes on in a polarizing fashion to put those who choose to take a day off from the internet into the same camp as those who want nothing to do with the internet ever. This not the case. The author, Casey Cep, points this out later. Choosing to take a day off from the internet is not an intent to abandon it. As someone who met her husband (before there was match.com), discovered new friendships and rediscovered old ones, has taken lots of online classes, and is all for ...