Analog and Sabbath.
We aren't buying vinyl records, film cameras, and paper journals just for the vintage aesthetic.
Our generation is unconsciously starving for Sabbath.
In college, I moved into a small apartment in my grandmother’s house.
Upstairs, tucked away in the closet, sat a record player and a collection of the greats.
Nat King Cole, Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, and the best old-school Broadway musicals you can find!
I would let those records play as I studied, cleaned, or made dinner, letting the music fill the small apartment and my heart.
And then we traded in the records, the film cameras, the journals for a hyper-digital world.
We traded slow for speed.
We traded curiosity for algorithms curating our thoughts.
We traded fresh air for screen time.
We traded creation for consumption.
We traded presence for speed.
It is no accident that we are flocking back to analog mediums.
The cozy hobbies of coloring books, crocheting, record-playing, and handwriting force us to slow down and savor the moment.
What culture calls an "aesthetic trend," theology calls presence …. Sabbath.
We were not created for the anxious rush of digital performance or endless doomscrolling.
We were created for rhythms of quiet, embodied reflection, and Sabbath rest.
This week, I was inscribing a passage out of Jeremiah 6:16, and look what I found:
“This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls . . .”.
In the book of Jeremiah, Israel had fallen far from God, and the Lord urged the people to return to the right path of living.
Yet Israel turned away, and if we are honest, many of us have done the same.
Today, we find ourselves at a crossroads. On one side stand the promises of tech giants, AI, and the constant call for newer, faster, better. On the other, the ancient ways of slowing down, Sabbath, rest, and presence with God and with one another. Which path will we choose?
When I sit with a physical Bible, a journal, and a pen, writing out Scripture line by line, I am not just passing time. I am practicing a sacred act of quiet resistance against a world that rushes past what matters most.
If you find yourself longing for a more analog life, maybe it’s not just for the aesthetic.
Perhaps that longing is the Holy Spirit reminding you that you were made for rest, for creating, not just for constant consumption. 🤎