Crash

It’s been a strange week. Hours after I last posted, my computer died, and I spent the weekend reading books, napping, and pleading with the machine to please, just turn back on! The computer guy came on Monday morning, took one look and said he’d need to take out the hard drive, perform some magic, and it would take a couple days. My computer left me then, and after 3 long days, it has just returned.

I don’t know all the right language here, and from what I can piece together, I had a “bad sector” and my “data” (read: files, photos, mp3s, everything) was lost. So my computer is back, but it doesn’t really feel like “mine.” All the programs, all the files that made it so personal to me (after all, isn’t it a personal computer?) are simply missing. As if they never existed in the first place. Two years of “Kate history” have vanished.

It is humbling, really. Because I was so cavalier about backing up files, so heedless of all the warnings about viruses and protection. So half of this problem is my own fault. I lost things that I never really cared enough about to save. I’m a half-hearted pack rat. I collected all this information, all these documents, but I never really valued them until they were gone in a clean sweep I didn’t ask for.

I wasn’t intentionally lying a couple weeks ago, or even back in May, when I said that my life fit in three suitcases. I just forgot that these days, we carry a lot of electronic baggage with us. Computers fit in our pockets, in our phones, and on our laps. Information is available with just a few clicks, little time, and little energy expended. We can save words and thoughts for years… even when we don’t need to, want to, or shouldn’t (I’m thinking of some poor course papers I once wrote). And it’s all conveniently packaged in some aluminum and plastic casing, providing a feeling of security and safety that things like information never used to have.

The early disciples carried around parchment or simply remembered the things they learned from Christ. No cross-referencing, no Internet searches, no concordances or commentaries. Early missionaries said goodbye to their families forever, not until they reached the closest Internet café where they could make a cheap phone call. Paul’s letters are filled with teaching, but also with greetings. One chance to tell the believers and friends all the things you wanted to say. It makes me grateful for the few buttons I have to push to talk with my friends and family, the little effort that goes into being able to keep up with them, to convey my love. It puts into perspective what I’ve lost this week—just “stuff” that I was fortunate to carry around for awhile. And in the context of Cambodia, in the face of extreme poverty, an iTunes library is such a silly thing to mourn.

It’s funny that on Monday, my morning reading was this: Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19-21). It sounds trite and over-spiritual, doesn’t it? But in the end, all that great music, all those treasured photos, and all my work is not coming with me. We’ll all be singing the same song, a glorious refrain to our King. Until then, I’m going to piece back together what I’ve lost, and be grateful for what I have. But I’m also going to invest in an external hard drive.