Old Wineskins and New Modem and Router

Thursday night we re-convened Craft Church. But Cyber. Before COVID-19 we would meet monthly in person at my immaculately sumptuous palatial townhouse, read and discuss a verse in the Book of James, and drink craft beer. I know it is not revolutionary but it has been great to pair theological discussion, practical application, conversation, and craft beer. I am always excited to see what people bring to share beer-wise and also their take on the verse at hand. Ah, the good old days. Let me tell you grandkids, it was the best! 

I had been doing enough video conferencing through the various platforms to realize ahead of time that there may be "technical" problems. I wasn't sure what the issues were but the evidence was pointing that it was on my end. I had been resorting to using my iPhone for both work and out of work online discussions and conversations, but didn't quite realize that this was truncating what I could see and what others could see in reference to me (on the Zoom platform specifically), on top of the choppiness of the video and audio. I had an awkward but not that serious of a problem on Thursday morning with an online meeting with school counselors in the area. I wasn't naked or taking a dump. I will leave it at that. Nothing questionable ultimately, just an honest misunderstanding that what I was seeing on my iPhone screen wasn't what people were seeing of me.

Long story short, I was wearing work-out clothes which for me are shorts, a tank top (known pejoratively as "wife beater" and I hate the term as it demeans a perfect legit piece of attire based on bad actors, admittingly not appropriate for work), and a bandanna.  My hair is flowing like Samson and I need to keep it pulled back with the bandanna. Even caps really no longer fit my big head with big hair. There is also no way I am going to attempt to cut my own hair. like a five year old. I think men can get away with it if they are already partially bald and/or wear their hair super tight. I thought I had the camera off. Nope. So, I looked like a 56 year old white man Tupac wanna-be to others which was not my intention. I had finished my work out as the conference continued. I got razzed quite a bit on Friday by my in-district counselors for this. Not the first time I have embarrassed myself. But, my heart was pure. It was a good laugh. How many Ph.D's does it take to operate Zoom correctly?   

So, back to Cyber Craft Church. It was great to catch up with friends that I have not seen for quite some time in person. We talked about what we could count as "Joy" which James admonishes his listeners and readers to do when encountering various trials. Even things as simple as getting a cup of coffee take-out at a local cafe has been elevated to epic. For me, it is the weekly pilgrimage to the beer distributor which Governor Wolf fortunately has allowed to be kept open. All these things we have taken for granted. While Cyber Craft Church continued, the audio/video was cracking up and I had to pull the plug after an hour and before I planned to as I couldn't get my iPhone nor my lap top to cooperate. 

On the night before (Wednesday), a good friend of mine had suggested that I get a new modem and router because he could see on his end that my transmission wasn't great. He had done a lot of research for he and his family about what equipment to use and he emailed me the links. He saved me a ton of legwork and also assisted throughout the process at different points. 

After Cyber Craft Church and the Thursday Counselor Meeting (without knowing that I put myself out there), I ordered the new modem and router. Amazon delivered the equipment a day earlier than planned and I received the boxes yesterday (Saturday) which I was happy about so I could try and get everything working before my day of rest today. I try to avoid vexing issues on the Sabbath which can be done either before or after Sunday.  Please don't send me emails about how the Sabbath is technically a Saturday. Really tired off that discussion.

I ran into a number of roadblocks last night and had a queasy feeling that installation would not be as easy as I had hoped but feared it wouldn't be. I called Comcast but the call went into an automated answering system which was not helpful. COVID-19 and it being a weekend, has thinned the online customer service ranks.

I wound up connecting my old modem/router (same device) with the new Google router which was a work-around that greatly increased my download speed by 5X. I put the new modem away and decided to deal with it on Monday morning before needing to conference with my bosses at work. I wanted everything to be up-to-speed literally by then. I had my work-around and was halfway across the river to the 21st century. All of the video conferencing had exposed the fact that my equipment was in need of an upgrade. I could get by up until now. I also have an ancient lap top with even an older printer and a dated scanner where I am pretty certain will not work with a new lap top. That certainly made things even worse. Last time I went to search for a driver for the printer it took me hours to find it online.

Today I was reading the installation instructions from my modem and recognized that I had not followed the correct procedures in getting the modem online. I was essentially attempting to bring my modem and router on board at the same time which was creating a wall of error. Basically, the modem had to be connected by Ethernet cable first to my computer and then once that was done, I could do a modem reset and bring the router on board.

Once I saw my mistake, I followed the steps. My mistake had been following the router directions which neglected the modem steps. I got online with the Comcast web page and followed the protocols that it recommends for modem installation, and glory be, after a half an hour, everything synced properly and I now have speeds ten times faster than before. I really hadn't planned to work on it today but once I saw the missing step I had overlooked, I figured I could do it without a whole lot of stress.

The sheet of paper in the pic shows the before and after. The far right is with the modem and router online. The middle column was just the router. I was going to throw the sheet away but decided to hold onto it to take a pic of it. So, I didn't have to get Comcast out here on a service call. I own all of the equipment which saves a lot of money over the long-haul (I think a lot of Comcast customers just pay the modem and router rental fees which really add up). 

Times of crisis reveal where the old system no longer works. The tendency is to hold onto the old way of doing things because we can often get by for quite some times before the system frays. And once it frays, the new challenges overwhelm the old reality. When Jesus came in the flesh, he had a new way to God. The old law which pointed to God ultimately needed to be superseded by a new transmission. The law didn't change. It is still the same. But, it needed to grow on the old foundation.

I think our present crisis which may get worse is asking the Church how we plan to adjust to the new realities as the people of God. COVID-19 has just brought it to a boiling point. I have a lot of thoughts about this but won't get into it too much now.

P.S To give you an inkling of where I think the Church universal needs to go (esp. US), decentralized, no big buildings and budgets. Pastors should be paid to train others to lead. My preference is that most teachers not be paid and earn their keep outside of the church. Meeting places should be in homes where the group is 10-12 people. Where instruction and correction are personal and not institutional.  Like Jesus did. Like Craft Church does. New wine, new wineskins. New modem and router, new download and upload speeds.