Mind over technology

I made a deal with myself many years ago. When personal computers arrived on the scene I didn't know if I would be able to learn how to use one. I still had trouble doing basic things with a VCR. But when I received a computer as a gift from my husband as a show of support for my work, I decided to approach it on a "need to know" basis. That is, I consented to learning what I needed to know - like how to turn it on, type things and print them. I had no interest in learning the whys and wherefores of computing.

But then a problem arose that I seemed to have no control over. With my minimal skills, I was at a loss for how to overcome it and no one around me seemed to be any better clued-in than I was.

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_I lost an article that I was writing under deadline. I had invested a considerable number of hours pulling together just the right ideas and thought I had saved it, but the computer unexpectedly shut down and the screen went black. When I turned the computer back on and searched for it, I was shocked. My work was nowhere to be found. I knew that somewhere in the computer's memory the article still existed, but I had no idea how to locate it.

I remembered these words of James, "If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you." (James 1:5)

So, I started to pray, and my prayer led me to open up Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures for a little spiritual insight. For me, Science and Health is an owner's manual - not for computers, but for me! I think of it as an "Owner's Manual for the Child of God". And like a good owner's manual, it helps troubleshoot when problems arise.

In a chapter dealing with communication, thought and memory, I read this passage: "Portraits, landscape-paintings, facsimiles of penmanship, peculiarities of expression, recollected sentences, can all be taken from pictorial thought and memory as readily as from objects cognizable by the senses. Mortal mind sees what it believes as certainly as it believes what it sees. It feels, hears, and sees its own thoughts. Pictures are mentally formed before the artist can convey them to canvas. So is it with all material conceptions. Mind-readers perceive these pictures of thought. They copy or reproduce them, even when they are lost to the memory of the mind in which they are discoverable." (pp. 86-87)

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_I took that passage, line by line and considered the computer. I had been afraid that my precious sentences were lost, when they were always present and cognizable or retrievable in memory.

Then I thought about seeing what I believe and believing what I see. Up to this point I believed I was a dummy when it came to computers and this belief had played out in my experience. The picture I held of myself as inept was written all over that empty computer screen. But rather than kick myself further for not knowing how to find the document, I let that material conception of myself go and decided to recognize my willingness to learn, and my speed at turning to prayer when in a jam, as signs of my true intelligence. That put a stop to the self-condemning thoughts.

Lastly, I considered what it meant to be a Mind-reader - that is, Mind-reader with a capital M. As a synonym for God, Mind is the infinite intelligent source of all things created.  I could see that I wasn't a personal creator with a personal memory. We don't own or store up God's ideas in a personal receptacle called mortal memory. Memory is a faculty of Mind. Mind is the source of all good ideas and we are created to reflect - to read, understand and express what God creates.

As a Mind-reader, we each have the built-in capacity to copy or reproduce - that is express in a God-caused way, - whatever is held in Mind. The right thought on any subject is always available to man as a Mind-reader. If the human mind or computer memory is drawing a blank, Mind has got what we need and it is always discoverable.

Now I consented that the article was intact; and I set about, in this circumstance, to reproduce it. I rewrote it without a seconds hesitation in a matter of minutes. Sometime later, I did find the original copy in the computer. It was always discoverable there, even when I thought it was lost. But word for word, the rewrite had perfectly reproduced the original.

Nothing is lost in Mind and there is nothing to fear in technology. It gives us opportunities to break through personal limits to discover a bottomless capacity to express, to reflect, divine intelligence.

It doesn't hurt to keep that owner's manual, Science and Health, nearby, though!

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