In yesterdays Guardian there is an article – an excerpt from a book actually – by a chap who decided to live a biblical life for a year – literally. One of the things he had to come to grips with was keeping Sabbath.

Like many of us he is surrounded by techno-toys: blackberry, laptop, mobile, play station (not in this house!)etc.. He is also a workaholic, something of an undiagnosed pathology in our modern society. We are perversely compelled to always be “seen” to be doing something – preferrably something to make profit. Laptops and blackberrys make workaholism an almost seamless part of our daily life. My partner until this time last year, worked for six years at a firm where workaholism was not merely the norm, it was an oppressive excess. It was not uncommon for me to wake up in the wee hours of the morning to the blue-green glow of a blackberry screen next to my head! Weekends away were not “just for us” rather they were an awkward threesome that included his manipulative mistress. Planes, trains, cruise ships, hotel rooms, museums, restaurants, and all the green places in between were haunted by the ubiquitous blackberry, staring unrelentingly at us, accusing us of not making profit, with its unblinking blue-green eye. And yet . . . . I’m just as bad! Each morning I check emails, blogs, and news sites. I look at the traffic reports on my various blogs and web-sites, and before I know it – without actually having accomplished much – its lunch time!

Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man, I think I know why!

We need this time to consciously interrupt the seemingly seamless flow of work, and the cares of the mundane. I wonder too, if this abrupt interruption does not also serve another purpose – to cultivate mindfulness.

Many times I have sat before my computer screen, starting out with one simple task – say checking the news site, only to discover that two hours have passed and I’ve long since left the realm of the BBC and am now trundeling through a web-page on Bhutan! We all do this in other ways but the internet illustrates it most succinctly. This un-mindful, drone like state that takes over and seamlessly fills our time.

Jesus taught us to be mindful of the NOW – to be in the NOW fully. Slipping mindlessley from work to home, never leaving one, and never fully embracing the other, is not what he had in mind. Equally sliding unconsciously from one link to another to another only to end up in some far corner of the great ether that is cyber-space, not entirely sure how I got here in the first place, is not an example of embracing NOW.

Throughout the Guardian article the author really felt challneged by the mindfulness cultivated by the many strands of his experiment; in the way he spoke, in the way he approached interactions with others, and in what he ate. Yesterday, as a part of the beginning of my own experiment, I refrained from using my computer all day. This ought to be easy – I thought. By the end of the day I had come to fully appreciate how this wonderful piece of kit, also requires a degree of discipline on my part. In many respects it was a liberating experience. I intend to continue yesterday’s one off experiment for a full year. I want to see if and how its lessons spill out into the mundane of the rest of the week. I want to see if by changing just one thing, I might also see other changes in my spiritual life and social interactions in the spaces inbetween.

Want to join the experiment? Drop a comment here (be sure to include your own blog URL) and add “Tech Free Sabbath” as a label over at yours.