Unsubscribe

I pulled up my emails yesterday morning and scanned through the plenteous junk mail for messages from REAL people and sites with information I need.   It is like searching through an enormous crowd for the faces of those I really love. The computer is a great source of communication, but, as I have discovered, it provides an even greater source of distraction.

A line of superfluous emails awaits me every morning.  And most of the time, I spend a few minutes deleting all of them.  It doesn't take too long, but it is a few minutes I could spend instead on what really matters. 

Yesterday, amid the pressing commercial cries of "open me or you are going to miss out," I began to push back.  I began to unsubscribe. While it may appear impossible to back out of this barrage of emails -- sometimes sent more than once a day -- there is an escape route at the very bottom of each email in the teeniest tiniest font, a barely visible "click here to unsubscribe."   I am tired of the clutter in my inbox and the urgency of "you really need this."  If I want things to be different, something has to change.  And that time is now.

What I really need is to be not distracted by the mundane any longer.

As I clicked the first "unsubscribe" button, I noticed how many retailers acted like junior high girls who have been offended, stating in so many words, "well, I don't want to be friends with you either."  Some retailers begged for reconciliation, "how about only once a week?"  " A month?"  "Special events?" And the supposedly heart-rendering "so sorry to see you go."

You are not my friend.  Don't pretend to be.

I looked up the word "subscribe" in my father's old dictionary.  The first meaning is "to write one's own name in one's own hand."  It is a promise and a commitment of precious time and treasure.

When I choose to unsubscribe
     from a covetous lifestyle
or an enslaving website
               of any kind,
      it releases me.
It is a turning from what draws away
    and a focusing on
                a higher calling.
I am choosing to subscribe
           to something different,
to Him who has written my name
         on His hands.

And in that fresh margin of time,
God sharpens my heart
                 to His purposes.


All things are lawful for me,
but not all things are helpful.
All things are lawful for me,
but I will not be enslaved
                       by anything.

              1 Corinthians 6.12