Sunday Snow
2 Mar
Somewhere between fantasy and reality, there exists the online world of blogdom, Facebook, and Twitter.
Several heavyweights in the blog world have lately declared a fast of sorts. Names like Anne Jackson and Carlos Whitaker come to mind. This post is not at all a condemnation of their “fasts”, but a rambling of sorts with that as a starting point.
Six plus inches of snow separated me from the online world today, due to the fact that our internet service is provided by WildBlue satellites. Snow, clouds, rain, and other minor inconveniences for normal Americans become disasters of huge proportion for WildBlue users. Our eyes water, our fingers twitch, and our heart aches to see if Joe Bob Sally Jim has updated his Facebook status.
I played in the snow today. I snowboarded. I snowball fit. (That’s the past tense of “fight”). I drove backward down a steep hill in a two wheel drive van that was determined to not go up that hill. I prayed for a balky Jeep to start after it refused to do so, and wow, praise God, it started! I prayed for Karma’s mom’s power to come back on, and dadjim, twenty minutes later she called to say the power was back on. It almost scared me to have two distinct prayers answered in the space of about two hours. (Had I finally learned the right secret words to say????)
I had a blast.
The snow filling that little dish on top of the Shuford household caused me not the slightest amount of stress, even though it was the first day of the 6th Tournament over at Chess.com.
I was rather surprised at all the fun I had.
All this said fun was not, of course, solely connnected to being disconnected. But that disconnection didn’t kill me.
I have met a LOT of people via the Internet. In a sense, I’m very proud of the online community that I have.
I simply want it to be an EXTENSION of who I am, and not a replacement for the real “me”. I love my Internet friendships, and I have no plans to discontinue them. I do, however, want to pursue them as real friendships, not just as bits and bytes or as an escape from “the real world”. The “real world”, after all, is the real world.
Life is a good thing. I want to enjoy it, not just write about how much I use to enjoy it.
Live like you are really alive. Because, as Christ’s followers, we are.
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Glad the snow didn’t cause any major disruption, and that it reminded you that the real world is so rewarding!
Heh. I probably would have never met Bernard Shuford had it not been for the world wide web. Or Karma Shuford and the little Shufords for that matter.
I still love the story Karma tells about how we met…”Oh, they met on the Internet” (insert slight intonation).
I was thinking of that the other day. Kelly H’s (I *think* that is who it was) expression was priceless when she asked how C and I met, and I answered, “Oh, our husbands met on the Internet.” buahahahhahahahahahahah.
I got caught up spending too much time on the internet when I first got my computer, but eventually balanced everything out. It is easy to use it as entertainment and kind of withdraw from actually getting out, but now I keep pretty busy with community activities and don’t get back to check everyone’s blogs as much as I wish. I have made some very good online friends and am blessed to have them.