The Best Place to Live

And the Most Important Move You Will Ever Make

Whenever Jeff and I return to California for a visit, we’ll go to our favorite old spots: a beach in Malibu for an evening walk or a pier in San Clemente for ice cream.

On a recent trip back, Jeff and I went to the famed Pantages Theater on Hollywood Boulevard where we have enjoyed many shows over the years.

This year we saw Hamilton.

Occasionally someone will ask me which place I like better — California or North Carolina?

When most people think of California, they usually think of Hollywood or those iconic beach sunsets, which really are amazing, but I will forever maintain that few places on earth can rival the glory and grandeur of Yosemite National Park in Central California.

The steep mountains of granite and the neck-bending heights of waterfalls, the miles of coniferous greenery and the rivers of winding whispers — all of it is a wonder to behold.

Jeff and I have spent more than one anniversary hiking through the wooded glades of Yosemite.

But where California has Yosemite, North Carolina has the Blue Ridge Mountains.

And where California can see the sun settle over the Pacific, the Carolinas can watch the sun rise over the Atlantic.

The truth is, beauty is everywhere; we have only to look for it.

And the best place to live is right where we are — ensconced in families, embedded in neighborhoods, and established in local churches.

You see, the most important move I have ever made is not from one coast to another, but from the digital to the local, from the electronic ethereal to the embodied real.

Several years ago I noticed the way I spent more time each day talking on my phone with friends in other time zones rather than talking with neighbors in my own zip code. So, one year for Lent I decided to delete the Voxer app from my phone. (I have a habit of giving up strange things for Lent.)

I made a deliberate choice to move out of the increasingly entrenched realm of a very online life, and I made a conscious choice to invest more in the people around me — the people in my home, my neighborhood, and my church.

When Lent was over, I realized I liked this way of life better, so I pushed back against the Internet’s invisible-yet-invasive tendrils trying weave into every facet of my life and my home. I never added the Voxer app back to my phone, and I deleted many more apps. I also made a plan for stepping away from social media for good, which has been one of the best decisions ever.

I intentionally prioritized offline life over online life. And I will never go back.

This, of course, goes against all conventional wisdom for authors who are constantly told to promote themselves unabashedly online. This also goes against the grain of what almost everyone in our culture is doing as they succumb to a very online life.

But I am convinced that God’s design for humanity is infinitely wiser and better and more beautiful than anything Silicon Valley can come up with.

The best place to live is in the real world with real people, but in an algorithm-driven world, this is a very contrarian thing to do.

People will be confused when you don’t want to turn your outing for tea with friends into a photo-op for Instagram. People will be perplexed when you have zero desire to turn a crisis into a series of real-time updates online to garner attention.

That is the world’s way, but there is a better way.

We oftentimes think of our priorities as a top-down list, but I like to think of them as a series of concentric circles, with God in the very center circle to reflect the truth that God is the center of my life. In the next circle, I picture my family. In the next, my friends and neighbors and coworkers. In the outer circles, I think of the people I love in faraway places with whom I can easily interact via text or email or actual phone call. And in the outermost circle, I think of the digital realm where we connect with others online.

This image of concentric circles is how I envision my priorities:

God ) Family ) Neighbors & Church Friends ) Long-Distance Friends ) Online Connections

I find this idea of concentric circles helpful as it reminds me to frequently ask myself two important questions: How much of my time am I spending in those outermost orbits online? And how much of my time am I spending in those innermost orbits with God and family and friends?

These questions help me tether my life to what is real.

I have not discarded technology altogether; obviously, I enjoy writing in an online space and will continue to do so, and I especially enjoy interacting with readers in lots of interesting places. My concentric-shaped priorities simply inform how I use digital technologies.

I think readers will agree that I am usually encouraging all of us to find the good we can online, but then quickly return to the real world where real people really know us.

Instead of looking down at a screen all day, let’s look up into people’s faces.

This move from pixels to people is truly the best move of all.

From the California fields of poppies to the Carolina blooms of dogwoods, there are people and places to love right where we are.

This doesn’t mean it will always be easy. There will be hurts and disappointments along the way.

In response to relational pain, the temptation to sequester ourselves online can feel safer sometimes. I understand the draw. But God’s way is still the better way.

A healthy life means investing in relationships — in our homes, our communities, and our churches.

When we have this rightly ordered in our lives, our online interactions become a reflection of genuine health, and our hearts and our homes become a sanctuary from a loud and restless world.

This is what I hope you find whenever you share this space with me online: words of grace and truth that point us to the One who is our Hope, and perhaps a few ideas for living counter-culturally from the world around us.

Shalom.

Denise

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P.S. Interestingly, this piece was published just yesterday, and it is very much worth reading.

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*No part of this newsletter — nor anything I have ever published — was made with Artificial Intelligence (AI) or ghostwriters. All my words, including any accidental typos, are my own, except for when I quote others with appropriate citations and links.