Down Home: Over-reliance on microchips; or digital dementia

Sometimes, I think I suffer from digital dementia. Or maybe it’s microchip amnesia.

Whatever you want to call it, here’s the problem: When my computer fails, I can’t remember stuff. Even important stuff.

My most recent bout occurred during the past couple of weeks, but it began, oh, a couple of months ago. Probably. I think. But I’m not sure.

Here’s what I remember: A pastor who is working on a doctor of ministry degree from a Baptist seminary contacted me. His academic supervisor thinks I would be interested in his work. I was interested in his work.

Here’s what I think I remember: The pastor’s church is in the East, maybe in Virginia. His project has to do with small churches. Since Texas has tons of small churches, the Baptist Standard would be a good outlet for his findings. He was interested in writing something about his findings for us. Or maybe he was interested in sharing his findings, and we would do the writing.

Here’s what happened: When his email arrived, I replied. I always reply to serious email. I told him I would be interested, but I couldn’t get to it right away. I even followed up, confirming he still was on my radar. Then I got a new cell phone and encountered a few hassles setting up my email. Then, a couple of weeks later when I had time to work with the pastor, I looked for his email. Gone. From my in box. From my sent-mail folder. Even from the Dead Sea of email, the all-mail folder.

And here’s what I don’t know: The pastor’s name, his church, his seminary or his email address.

I hate when this happens.

It’s especially annoying to first-child, people-pleasing preacher’s kids like me. We’re the ones who don’t want to disappoint anyone or let anyone down. And we absolutely hate when we make people angry with us. Like a very nice pastor/D.Min. student who made a generous offer and now probably is wondering why I blew him off.

All wired up

This kind of thing happens more readily now. Before we all got wired up, people put information down on paper. Back then, this pastor would have written me a letter, which would have been sitting in my to-do folder, waiting for me. Or if he had called, I would have written all his information down on one of those pink message tablets we used to keep by the phone, which now would be sitting in my to-do folder, waiting for me. The only way I would have lost it is if the office burned down.

But now, all communication is gone. And I didn’t memorize his name, because I didn’t need to. Or so I thought, at least.

Of course, we’re blessed. Smart phones, tablets and laptops store and transmit all our information. We can take it with us wherever we go. When I slide my laptop into my briefcase, I carry around enough letters, memos and other documents to fill a storeroom full of file cabinets. But when it goes, it’s gone.

I back up my phone and tablet to my laptop and to something called “the cloud.” I also back up my laptop to our computer server. But no email cloud floats on the horizon.

Still human

Episodes like this provide a reminder that, as helpful as it is, technology can’t solve all our problems. Not even close. We’re still human, and the human dimension of our relationships can’t be condensed to bytes and pixels.

But now, if that pastor or his academic adviser would just read this column and give me a call, I’d write everything down on paper. Of course, digital saves trees, but I’d trade a tree for getting back in that guy’s good graces.