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Going offline

By Karen Farris, Op-ed contributor Friday, February 22, 2019

(Photo: Unsplash/Priscilla Du Preez) | (Photo: Unsplash/Priscilla Du Preez)

Internet entrepreneur, Arianna Huffington, says it’s time to “Reevaluate your relationship with technology before it’s too late. We’re burned out from being always on.”

Stretched out on the couch, my husband shut his eyes—the eye doctor’s visit left his eyes dilated for the evening. A warm fire provided a soft glow, and I sat nearby reading. It was a companionable time. I read, he rested, the fire burned, and the forest beyond the cabin was quiet.

After an hour, I went to the piano, and began playing the songs I scribed years ago. How long had it been since I chose to play in the evening?

Then we talked—about life, family, faith, and the future neither of us can see.

What was so different? We hadn’t let our phones interfere. There wasn’t a Facebook update to check out, or a Twitter feed to follow. No computers or televisions were around to make their screens glow.

It was an old-fashioned evening in an old cabin with an older couple reveling in the newness of being detached from the tethered ropes of our online world. Maybe the old way of enjoying the evening can become the new way.

Karen Farris served in the crisis pregnancy ministry — traveling thousands of miles and speaking to over 10,000 students about their life choices — for nearly a dozen years. She became a grant writer and helps find resources for projects that serve those in poverty, mainly children. She's been a blogger since 2010 — Friday Tidings — sharing stories of faith, life, and purpose to give hope in a hurting world.