I love hammering that backspace button. I use it. I abuse it. If something comes out in a way I don’t like it, I smash that key and redo it.

As a kid, we had an old mechanical typewriter. Ribbons. Ink. That sound. Shunk, shunk, shunk. Shunk shunk. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp. (That’s the sound of making the carriage ‘return’ to beginning of the line) Shunk. Shunk shunk.

I feel like as a modern society we’ve gotten used to being able to (seemingly) easily undo things. I found it frustrating recently when trying to do a long series of ‘undo-ing’ on a PowerPoint presentation. Why, I asked myself, had this machine forgotten the progression of my work such that I couldn’t just go back at any time to the point I wanted to?

I wonder if we treat life like that a bit? If we don’t like something – hit the big red button. Delete. Undo. Backspace.

In some ways this is a very good thing. We don’t have to fear errors.

If you were so cursed as to make a mistake on an old typewriter, there was a litany of solutions we went through. At one point you had to hold some sheet of white stuff against the page, and type the exact same character in the exact same place. Or then there was liquid white out. Then there was correction tape. It was a lot of work.

((wait, does anyone remember word-processor machines? Like those weird in-between devices between typewriters and computers??))

It’s better now. Mistakes are gloriously undo-able. That kind of attitude has positive echoes in life for those who live accordingly. My mistakes, my errors and sins, are not the end of the world. Neither need be the misdeeds of others. It can be amended, forgiven, gotten past, put aside, or otherwise dealt with through the application of relational white out. Spiritual correction tape. The loving backspace button.

But there’s a downside. Sometimes errors are not so easily fixed. Damage is done and can’t be redone. There’s probably no need to give examples here. Sometimes an error leaves a permanent mark, an unfillable hole, an indelible stamp.

In the Christian faith, there is a striking balance when it comes to mistakes, evil, damage and sin. The harm from wrongdoing is to be put aside as quickly and routinely as possible. But there is acknowledgement that some groans will continue until the new creation.

Maybe this can give us a helpful posture of fearless caution as we navigate life. On the one hand typing our way thorough life shouldn’t feel like walking a tightrope. We can get things wrong, and get past them. And yet. We shouldn’t plonk down letters and words and strike the keyboard of live with reckless abandon. We should take care.

Happy typing to us all.