Mediaculture

In July, I drove from Pittsburgh to Holmes County, Ohio, for a weekend of camping and canoeing with my family. I turned off my cell phone and left it in the car when we reached the site, ready for time away from electronics.

Participants in the “Purpose Driven Circus” skill-sharing workshop learn juggling and theology at the PAPA festival June 19-22. Photo by Tim Nafziger

Within minutes, I heard an AC/DC rock song blaring from the site on our left and two dogs barking from the site on our right. I thought it would be easier to get away from distractions. But the campground belonged just as much to my music-playing neighbors as it belonged to me.

I could question their definition of spending time in nature, but they could question my lifestyle in the city that requires setting a weekend aside from modern distractions. While our expectations of what “camping” is differed, we had to share that space.

Mennonite camps also struggle with these differing expectations when campers arrive on their properties. Some camps allow cell phones and iPods, but others have strict rules against them.

Corbin Graber, director of Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp in Colorado, said his camp holds to their “no cell phone rule” at camp. To him, it’s part of what makes the camp experience distinct.

Mainstream culture also questions what will happen if technology and material things take over our lives. In the new Disney-Pixar film, Wall-E, a lone robot lives 700 years in the future on a desolate earth destroyed by Western materialism.

Realizing the influence technology has on my life, I attempt to move in and out of my tech-reliant world. But I cannot expect others to move with me. Guidelines, such as “no cell phones,” offer structure.

Other people create intentional spaces for even more extreme experiences that connect people to people—and people to the earth—without distractions from electronics.
In June, Tim Nafziger blogged about the People Against Poverty and Apathy (PAPA) festival held in June at the Plow Creek Community and Mennonite Church in Illinois.

He explained that the PAPA festival serves as unofficial convergence space for the New Monasticism movement; it is marked by communal life, hospitality, engaging with the poor and leading prayerful, contemplative lives.

In addition, a “technology skepticism” was present in varying extremes, Nafziger said. (Some considered themselves Luddite, others did not.) Some people at the festival are wary of the assumption that technological progress is always good and that this myth is part of a global problem—a slightly different approach than the Amish take.

Just as I shared camp space, people at the festival shared space. In one very tangible way, the festival attendees had to address ways to deal with waste at the event. Some used a composting system and others used port-a-johns. But people respected each other’s actions.

Among the workshops and worship, Nafziger mentioned the “skills shares” that “offered practical instruction for crafts (knitting, pie baking and fiber crafting), agriculture (animal husbandry and weeding), nature skills (mushrooms, edible wild plants and herbs), performance (drumming, circus skills and henna) and the Chauceresque (pilgrimage, hydrotherapy and midwifery).”

None of these activities used PowerPoint or video clips or an Internet connection—and they required more energy and planning than a weekend camping trip. The activities would have excited and challenged me.

But since I was not at a Mennonite camp or the PAPA festival, I had to bounce back when the radio interrupted the campsite’s quietness. The new challenge: being flexible with my neighbors— and not missing my cell phone.

But this campground also had guidelines obeyed by all. At the 11 p.m. onset of “quiet hours” the dogs stopped barking and campers turned off their radios.

Next year, I may reserve a site at the less-crowded national park. But for this year, listening to classic rock in the woods required me to share nature with others while I left my personal distractions at home.—Anna Groff