Sometimes Jesus can tell us something that can take us by surprise.
I was sitting on the subway, and I picked a book out of my briefcase to read, not something on my Kindle or phone, my usual way of reading. After a couple of pages, I was struck by how different the experience was. Not just the way the words in type entered my head but how I was more likely to look up from the page every once in a while, and take in the scene.
I would hardly be the first to point out how the iPhone has changed our lives. I confess that I find mine irresistible. Essential even. I love using it for Instagram photos, scrolling through Facebook, checking emails, preparing for the weather, listening to a song, getting a Lyft, texting, following the news, finding directions, reading a book, watching a clip. But it’s so demanding, insistent like a two-year-old, and all absorbing.
I started studying the other passengers on the train. Almost every other person there, our backs slightly hunched, our heads bowed, was staring into a phone. What they were looking at, I had no idea. All at once I was nostalgic. Remember how you used to be able to see what people were reading on the trains and even read over their shoulder? Is that lady really reading Proust? What does it say in the newspaper? Oh, I need to get a copy of that novel. And I’d see the people too, take them in.
Is it possible that this little device with access to everything has made my world smaller?
I remember being on a train a couple years back when iPhones were new and a passenger, virtually clueless to the rest of us, was trying out ring tones. She must have gone through a half dozen different tunes, her fellow passengers rolling their eyes. When she pushed the button for the theme of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Ode to Joy, someone said in a loud voice, “That’s the one!” She looked up startled, apologetic. The rest of us laughed, a moment of connection but the fear remains: Could I ever become that self-absorbed?
Yes, when it comes to my phone, I can.
Take what I do when I need to find an unfamiliar place. How grateful I am that I can simply punch in an address and if I’m driving, a voice, a curiously neutral voice, guides me through every turn. But I don’t ever ask for directions anymore. I don’t have those interactions you get when you pull over, roll down your window and talk to some guy at the side of the road. There is some loss to not getting lost.
Not long ago, I’d just returned a rental car in New Jersey and was trying to figure out how I was going to get back to the city on the George Washington Bridge. I stood on a corner looking at signs and bus schedules, not at any phone. Finally, I asked the one other person standing there, “How much does it cost on the bus to get back to the city?”
The woman smiled. “Not anything if you do it my way,” she said.
I looked at her questioningly but then a car pulled up. She gestured, “Come, come.” She got in the back seat on one side, and I got in on the other. (I must insist that she seemed completely trustworthy. The driver did too.) “He can take us across.”
At first, I thought she knew the driver, but no, he was a complete stranger to her too. “Can I pay you something?” I asked. He shook his head. Then as we came to the toll booth it became clear why he was glad to have passengers. We helped him qualify for the carpool rate. Some rides are much better than Uber or Lyft.
Every year I look for ways to celebrate Lent, that Christian season that commemorates the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness before he launched his ministry. (Not to get too technical here, but generally the 40 days begin on Ash Wednesday and end at Easter, not counting Sundays which are considered feast days.) Traditionally people will choose to “give up” something to honor the season, like eating chocolate or drinking wine, fasting as Jesus did. My wife once gave up worrying, which was impressive. Of course, she was supremely tested when our two then college-age sons decided to go to Mexico for spring break.
What about me this year? Could I give up my phone? Not for 40 days. I couldn’t do without it. But I could do something about my own behavior. I could find more times to look up. My son who works out in Silicon Valley tells me that when he and his buddies get together for dinner, they often take out their phones and dump them in the middle of the table. We all know the temptation to sneak a glance at it during a meal or a meeting. We all think nobody will notice. Let me tell you something. People notice. I do.
Why? Because during that moment, we’re not there. I’m not. I’m thousands of miles away in cyberspace, composing a text, polishing an email, thinking about people who are not even in the room. So why not give myself set times when the phone is simply out of my reach? What will I do then? How will I manage?
I might simply look up.
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