Ooooo, shiny!

I am writing this blog from my husband's new laptop. Its a Sony Vaio with Vista, Duel Processor, and a built in Mic and Camera. I like typing on this thing because:
A) I get to lounge
2) I can keep an eye on my mentally retarded cat and
d) I like the nifty noise it makes when I hit the keys.

You can say that I have a good case of the "pretty and shiny"s. I mean, who really cares about all this stuff. This computer can do more than I can figure out in a lifetime. It can out spell me and who can remember the last time they played solitaire with actual cards? Don't get me wrong; I have a perfectly good working computer sitting on my desk top. It was brand new 4 years ago which means that it might as well run on hamster wheels now. So this laptop is kind of my computer crush.
I never buy new clothes or music or decor or any of those things, so this is the newest appliance I have had the joy to encounter. For real people. I pray every morning to the gods of breakfast that the toaster won't die on me (this because my toaster is a hand-me-down from my grandmother. no shit.). So now I am enjoying the euphoria of the sleek little typing sound that makes me feel like I am in the middle of typing something really cool and important. And speaking of which, (tangent), I never know what to label posts like this. They give you a little box with which to "label" your post and then they give the clear examples of: scooters, vacation, fall. (pause) Who the hell is getting on here and blogging about scooters!! Come on people. New hobby.

So anyway, my deeper indention with all this is to make aware my own vulnerability. (and to exalt my cleverness). In this world, it is very hard to treasure simplicity. Lets just say its not going to be a "character word of the week" in your local school. In fact, I think "patriotic consumerism" took its place. There are so many distractions to deal with here (even if you have nothing). What are we red-blooded Americans to do? We are taught to buy. Debt is exalted and made necessary. We are marketed to as incomplete. Rich Mullins wrote, "People always say that they need just one thing. What they really mean is that they need just one thing more." There will always be some new thing we can reason ourselves into. Its a tough discipline.

Even with this computer (sigh). Despite the fact that we were deprived of our last computer by local crackheads and this one was given to us for free, I still feel like it can pull me away ever so slowly and rationally from the joy of simplicity. What might I be missing while drinking in the siren song of the keyboard? Perhaps the beauty of my husbands laughter coming from the living room. Perhaps my meditation on the vast intriguing miracles that exist even in this very room. What have you missed even by reading this paragraph?
Now wait a minute, erin faith. Are you telling me to stop wasting my time by reading this blog you invited me to? Hell no. Otherwise, I would not have even written it. What I am trying to say is, are we aware? Are we aware about how many small and seemingly harmless activities we encounter everyday that rob us of beauty and meditation and each other. We are an electronically addicted Western world. Electronics are not evil, but our abuse of them is. I love this computer, but I will send this out into cyberspace so that maybe after sending me a comment, you will get up and treasure something you miss. Protect your fragile virtue of simplicity.
I, on the other hand, am going to close up the Sony and go make-out with my husband. Cheers.