Reformatting

A few days ago, I finally did what I’ve needed to do for more than a year now – I reformatted my hard drive. Since I am one of the most computer illiterate people I know, this was no small feat; I’d never attempted it myself for fear of irreversibly damaging my machine.

But my hard drive was bursting to the seams with a whole load of data which was impeding my system’s performance and locking up my computer every so often, so I knew my trusty laptop was in a very unhealthy state and needed to be cleaned out soon. I backed up all my files into several CDRs, said a little prayer, and stepped off from the point of no return.

Happily, the operation went well, and very soon my laptop was resuscitated and running, with a new lease on life. I’m only now starting to add the essential programs I require for my daily “computing” needs, having junked or stored away much of the unnecessary and computer-artery clogging data I’d accumulated over the years, and am still in the process of sorting out my messed up files.

As if by accident (but of course we believe that there are no such things), my laptop spring-cleaning coincided with the reformatting of my spiritual perspective. I hardly noticed it at the time, but it seems that over the last couple of years I’ve been accumulating a lot of spiritual junk as well – excesses and incompatible “programs” that were bogging down my progress and “locking up” my spiritual hard drive. And so I had to reformat it as well, deleting everything, backing up what I could, and building from scratch.

The only thing I could trust in to take me through this was stability of my “operating system,” the firm foundation I call my Lord and God. Thankfully, this particular O/S is extremely user-friendly for idiots like me who need step-by-step instructions just to get to the next, well, step. Only when He had reestablished Himself as the basis for everything, the ultimate, barest essential I had to run on, the building block and cornerstone, could I start to add complementary “programs” that would help me become functional again.

The Church, and the Sacraments. Scripture. Prayer time. Works of mercy. These were the basic programs that got me back on track and running – my spiritual MS Office, anti-virus software, internet browser, and DSL connection (I don’t even think this can be considered a “program,” but I never claimed to be a computer geek…). As time has gone by, I continue to add on “programs” that I know I need but which I am a little more cautious of installing – this time around, after the trauma of almost crashing my “system,” I need to first test and see whether they’re compatible with my O/S and core software before I download and install them into my machine. Community – the smaller version within the Church. Good Christian inspirations who not only proclaim Christ, but actually live according to His example, practicing what they preach, or better yet, preaching the Gospel without words. The love of friends, Christian or not (but who will be soon…). And so on and so forth.

Reformatting – spiritual or technical - is cathartic. It’s an operation that allows us to determine what our priorities are, what we need to “survive,” and what we need to get rid of to be able to move on, boot up, and get online without delay or unnecessary molestation. Its consequences can only be good…so long as you let your O/S take control. ;-)