In the middle of the night, on the Thursday before Holy Week this year, my Internet service provider went out of business, quietly and without warning. I checked my email before going to bed, and when I got up the next morning, my computer wouldn't connect to the Internet. At work later that morning I discovered no website at the old url; a phone call connected me to a simple message: "Your Internet service provider is out of business. Have a nice day."

Here is a shocking question for someone accustomed to seamless connectivity: What do you do when you lose your ability to surf the web, to send and receive emails, to participate in the electronic age?

In the case of my family, for the time being anyway, the answer has been nothing. We decided not to find another Internet service provider. At first, this was because my family's Internet service disappeared on the eve of Holy Week, when a pastor has little time to do anything but work and breathe. Then we put off getting connected because we live in a condominium community whose homeowners association was exploring the possibility of getting wireless Internet access for all of the community, but when that plan was put on hold, my wife and I decided that we actually like not having Internet access in our home.

Without the ability to go online, we're doing more of the off-line activities that bring us joy. We talk to each other more than we did when one of us was constantly checking email. We're more attentive to our children. We have more time to do things that make us happy — like read and knit and listen to baseball on the radio.

This isn't to say that my family doesn't appreciate the benefits of email and the web. I am privileged to have a day job that allows me the freedom to check my personal email at work. When I need to or want to, I can stay in my office late or over my lunch break to maintain my website or to shop online. When I'm not at work, I can visit any of a number of local coffee shops where the wireless connection is free and the Java is well-caffeinated. We don't need to access the Internet at home.

I don't mean to preach; I know that not everyone can live in an Internet-free zone. These kinds of decisions must be made individually, given the needs and preferences that each of us possesses. When we lost our Internet service, my wife and I were able to ask if having an onramp to the information superhighway in our home improved our lives. It didn't, so we have chosen to remain disconnected.

And I remain happy with our decision to go offline. On the morning when I wrote this essay, I sat outside drinking coffee made from home-roasted beans watching the early summer solstice sunlight dapple the poplars that surround my back patio. The sound of an urban stream's running water mixed with the songs of wild and domestic birds to serenade my contemplation as I wondered that such beauty and tranquility could exist in an inner-city neighborhood beset with poverty, gang violence, and graffiti. I did wish that I had a cigarette, but no amount of broadband connectivity could have improved on the beauty of the morning. In fact, on other mornings of similar glory in the not too distant past, I might have been checking my email.

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Ben Daniel is the pastor of Foothill Presbyterian Church in San Jose, Calif. Visit hiswebsite or send him an email at {email ben@bendaniel.org}ben@bendaniel.org{/email}. © copyright 2007 by Ben Daniel.