I thought my post was a little over the top - "Bill Gates has a lot to answer for!" kinda thing.
Last night Newlin went to "My Computer" and saw everything was still on the hard drive, just not on the desktop or available. So he went to System Restore and it worked. But he recommended I not turn it off for awhile - remember it was fine at 9:00 p.m. Thursday night and at 6:00 a.m. Friday everything was gone. Thank you Bill Gates.
Anyway, this afternoon he had completed back-up and had just archived my emails on a disc when he found that Outlook crashed. I can still get my Yahoo! emails, but my Optonline.net emails are unaccessible. I have a link to them through my Yahoo! mail account, but Optonline is so unaccessible that so far they aren't showing up there.
So, what happened? We still don't know. I'm old. I'm from the manual, pre-electric, typewriter days. I got my first portable electric typewriter in college. Duplication was via the Gestetner or ABDick mimeograph machine that forced ink through a stencil that I typed on - you guessed it - a typewriter. You're lucky I have any success with this computer stuff. And the idea that the ministry of the ordained priest is doomed if I'm not hooked up just makes me want to curl up and hide.
This is the fourth time in four and a half years that a computer has crashed or otherwise died or sickened on my. That's a pretty high average, I think. But what do I know.
All I know is this: God called me to live as a person of prayer and study among people, whatever people God sends me to serve. I suffer the slings and arrows of technology. I do fairly well. But I am not happy with my average of cpu deaths to my name. I'm not happy that I rarely post on Facebook whilst my colleagues are posting multiple times a day and gathering a following. But I pray every day - multiple times, in multiple ways - and I study, and prepare sermons - on the computer! - and services of worship - on the computer! I visit the hospitalized and bury the dead, I counsel the joyous and the sad alike, and I try to broker a union between a congregation of English speaking people and a congregation of Spanish speaking people because it's the right thing to do.
So you'd think the technology dwarves would cut me a break.
A big break.
Now.
4 comments:
I think your break comes when you can acknowledge that your talents lie outside the realm of computerism. And you have many, many talents that don't even involve computers. Look in the mirror -- you're good.
Thanks, Barbara. I try to remember that. Meanwhile, so much of the administrative stuff is tied up in the computer, which proves to be truly built on shaky ground.
There is just nothing computers can do that is like sitting down across the table from another person and a couple of cups of tea, or walking around the block knowing someone is listening. Administrative stuff, good; reaching more people, farther away, good; but ministry, not the same.
Thanks, Dean. It is good to be reminded of that. Nothing like sitting at Dunkin' Donuts, either, with my "St. Arbuck's" icon, and having conversations with ordinary laborers who gather there.
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