All went largely according to plan this week. In preparation for doing an icon on an Osterrich egg (I’ve got some ideas for small triptych’s and possibly a silver panagia) I’m teaching myself to paint the “cartoon” or the outline for the icon directly on the surface. To now I’ve drawn it first on paper, then transferred it. This has always been unsatisfactory to me because it makes a mess, and you’ve got to remember to reverse lettering, and face directions (depending on your transfer method) etc. So I spent yesterday evening drawing – or more correctly painting – cartoons. It was a joy.

I also did something new and completely different. I did . . . . spinning! Yes some of you may wonder if my PhD topic is starting to affect my brain. No, I’m not trying to re-create the annunciation! But there is something . . . thoughtful, about spinning. Something that, like heschiya clears your mind from the distractions around you and allows you to simply sit, and be, and listen. You can read more about my spinning experiment here (yes there are pics).

The whole idea behind tech-free sabbath is to bring something to the experience that is part of my own cultivation of spiritual practice. Rather than merely “giving up” my computer for the day. Over the three previous weeks that sense of direction has been lacking. This week I gave the day a bit more focus – I’m re-claiming my artistic expression – in the context of faith of course (grin). Over the past two or three years – largely due to Das Elefant (my PhD thesis) I’ve not given much space for drawing, painting, and more important to me – iconography. I’ve only produced a few small pieces in the past few years, my brushes and paints, my many icon books have been gathering dust in their various repositories, neglected and unloved. That all began to change yesterday.

I would like to think of tech free sabbath as something that offers me something for the rest of the week. What I did then was to sit and prepare some sketching surfaces – to refresh my memory of things like sacred geometry. Now ready to recieve drawings I’m hoping that by next Sunday I’ll have produced some sketches and will be ready for the next step (to be determined next week).

I realised how dependent I am on my techno toys yesterday afternoon. There were about four things I wanted to do – including write up a piece for my thesis, and finish a writing project I’d promised another IC bishop – all of them were “computer dependent”. I found it oddly un-nerving yesterday to leave the computer un-touched; so much so that I had to “force” myself to do other things – in this case baking. I made a cake, baked bread (which I normally do on Sat or early Sunday so we have bread for Liturgy), and experimented with an Indian recipie.

I did do some reading for Das Elefant – which given the sporadic nature of said activity, produced some useful stuff.

The thing is – the whole idea behind tech-free Sunday is to move away from the unconscious “work” we insert into our free time and allow for other things to take root, or in this case since things spiritual have long since been planted in me – to escape the dappled light of shade in favour of a sunny spot. Ok Ok I took the vegetative metaphore a bit too far there – the point is I’m NOT supposed to use this time for working on the thesis, or on anything that can be percieved as labour; thus giving space for other things in my life.

Putting this in a theological context then – was God’s act of creation really “work”? Many Christians believed that creation is borne out of an act of love, not labour, so how does this fit into the idea of Sabbath?

This past Sunday was week two of my experiment. The first Sunday went well – but I was I think more concientious about what I was doing and why so the reflective elements of the experience were in full drive on the day. This week however, things. . . . .got lost in the frey. It was a full day, a busy day – more in terms of how my partner and I interacted and what we accomplished in that interaction than in general business that is not in keeping with the idea of “sabbath”.

The constant glow of the computer screen having been dimmed and silenced meant that conversation replaced the clickity click of keys. Don’t mis-understand me, my other half and I talk and engage with one another constantly – even when we are mindlessly surfing the net. But there is a difference in . . . .quality, or maybe better, effectiveness when all your attention is in the moment rather than being divided between the information being collected by the eyes, and the “other” information being collected by the ears. While I did not appreciate it on Sunday – it was a “full” day and so did not feel . . . .”sabbath like” in some strange way – in hindsight my awareness of our interaction and how it was slightly different would seem to be yet another way in which the experiment cultivates mindfulness.

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.