Help! I'm Being Improved!

New and Improved—

I cringe when I hear those words.

Especially when they apply to my computer. it means that somebody somewhere is changing things so that stuff I used to be able to do, I can no longer do without learning how to do it all over again from scratch.

Yes everything is improving but me.

Now, I’m all for self-improvement because it works like this billboard I saw on the Oddly Specific site—this says it all:

New and improved means change.

The only thing in the universe that does not change is God. He is immutable. To change He would either have to get better than He is, (how can perfect get better? )or worse than He is. Neither is possible. His love does not change.

But computer systems change.

Boy do they change!

And I resist change.

Case in point: I got an e-mail saying that an improvement may knock my blog off the internet come March 26th. Of course I can improve my postings by going from an FTP to something else.

That’s fine, except that I don’t know what an FTP is.

I thought it had to do with sending flowers, until last night when my son and his wife explained that that last letter is a P not a D. For years I had not paid that much attention because I don’t want to send flowers so I ignored those initials. Donald explained that they mean File Transfer Protocol.

I used to watch West Wing when it was on tv so I knew the word protocol has to do with seating arrangements at a White House dinner.

Well, I was right about the arrangement part of my hazy definition. But I have not been invited to the White House yet.

So Sunday while the Superbowl players provided background noise, Donald and Helen answered a laundry list of questions I’d written down about computer improvements. Every answer means more work for me.

I almost snapped this photo of Helen and Donald with my keychain camera; they watched Superbowl while their cat Perl nudged my elbow (I love my little camera!).

One improvement I face involves plugging two new cables into my computer. Another may involve reformatting book files. Another apparently means learning a new software system. Another involves giving a third party access to withdraw cash from our bank account.

Whoa!

Not a chance of a snowball in Haiti.

Let me read that contract again.

These changes are supposed to keep me on-line and generate more income for me by generating greater book sales…. Humm, back in October and November I sent weeks reformatting books to do that very thing. Let’s check the accounting records….

Yes, my earnings have increased. I made 3 cents more than I made before I put all that work in.

Patience, John.

It takes time for improvements to show results. Right? After all this is the computer age when data moves around the world in seconds. In fact, when some company wants to remove money from our bank, they do it in the twinkling of an eye.

One improvement ahead will transfer my blog to Word Press; that challenges me.

My postings may have a new improved look, maybe even a different color scheme.

Also, watch for this guy to appear in my sidebar; he is the harbinger of a new FreeEbook to be offered each month after we get the program set up.

Yet another computer site improvement will be an 86-page sale catalogue for the Florida history materials I’ve collected over the past 35 years.

Yes, under duress, and with a suspicious mind, I am tiptoeing (dragged kicking and screaming) into the required improvements.

But I don’t want to be new and improved.

I’m old and entrenched.

Remember that old church song: Just As I am?

It says we surrender to God just as we are, naked, ashamed, confused, reluctant, “O Lamb Of God, I come”.

Barbara White, author of the Along The Way series of books (at www.bluefishbooks.info ) says, “The Lord loves me just as I am and too much to let me stay that way”.

St. Paul said, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away ; behold , all things are become new. And all things are of God…”.

He does not just patch me up; He makes me a new and improved creature.

Trouble is, this new nature gets packaged in the same box as my old nature. That creates problems.

I don’t want God to love me too much.

I don’t want to be improved.

I don’t want to learn new tricks.

I’d rather that God tolerated me instead of loving me.

Cause Love just don’t quit.

He won’t leave well enough alone.

So what if I have a few rough edges, I don’t like to be held to His grind stone. It hurts to be polished.

Lots of folks seem to hanker after joining churches—but they want to be members without any change in lifestyle or behavior or attitude. They want the same thing I want.

I like me as I is too.

Old and entrenched.

My e-friend Amrita, in her biographical sketch of Sundar Singh yesterday provides this illustration: A man in the river swims around unaware of the weight of water; but when he comes out and tries to lift even one bucket full of water, he realizes how heavy it is.

Sin is like that. We swim immersed in it as our natural element with hardly a thought. It is not until we begin to get out that we realize that sin has weight. A heavy, back-breaking burden pressing us down.

And, being old and entrenched, we thought it nothing to soak in sin.

No wonder we need the Lifeguard.

But I’m getting away from griping about improvements to my computer…

Be that as it may, floundering, I’ve screamed for help with my computer upgrades, with improvements and with the downright arbitrary changes which swamp me.

So my daughter-in-law Helen, who is a … What’s the right word for a female geek? Geekess? Geekette?—anyhow, Helen is coming to my rescue this afternoon to begin some of these many changes.

Look for exciting new changes and improvements to this site…. Maybe by March first. Can’t guarantee that, but it’s my target date.

Of course, that may change.