Why Smart Phones Are Like Praying

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You've seen it: people hunched over their iPhones the minute they walk out of a movie or out of work or into work or at work. Kids in the mall. People in their cars. It's even contagious: if you see someone with their phones under their noses, you immediately grab your own. Mustn't miss something!

But it's a comment I heard about the hunching over that got to me -- like a zinger. When I first received my iPhone (as a birthday present), my husband (the giver), realized that I was no longer present to him. Some present! And just to get my goat, he observed, "You are worshipping at the foot of The Great iPhone. Diana. When you bend over your phone, it's like you're praying."

So, not, "It looks like you're praying" but "It's like you're praying."

Hey, how's a little zinger going to do to stop me.

I haven't stopped. On and on I've gone, relying more and more on my phone. 

• Lost? I'll get you there with my GPS. 
• Wanna know who was in that movie you just saw? I'll look it up. 
• Oh, you'd like to do lunch? Let me check my Calendar.
• ESPN tells me in Norway how the Rangers are doing in Dallas.
• Weather tells me what it's like in Los Angeles. (71 right now, going down to 45 tonight. Don't forget your coat, Sarah, for when you come out of yoga.)
• Allergy Detection, Apple Store, WiredForJoy, TripAdvisor, Zippo Lighter, iWant (one of my faves), Stocks, Photos, RL Classic. 
• What do you need? I can help you.

But it's the WHITE, LOWERCASE f ON THE BLUE FIELD THAT GETS MY ATTENTION OVER & OVER & OVER & OVER & OVER...

My use of it does make me wonder if I'm not doing something like praying.

***

Yesterday I asked people (on FB, of course. Who talks face-to-face anymore?) to tell me:

Where is the oddest, funniest, or rudest place you have seen people on their Smart Phones (I'm writing a blog on phones and want to hear from you first.)

New York Philharmonic Orchestra

I got tremendous responses. My sweet niece sent me a link to what happened last night at the New York Philharmonic. A cell phone went off in the final movement of Gustav Mahler's beautiful 9th Symphony. It made that "marimba" ring that I, and thousands of others, use. It came from the first row. NO ONE MADE A MOVE TO TURN IT OFF. Maestro Gilbert stopped the orchestra, waiting until the ringing ceased. This is something that had never before happened in the history of the orchestra. Take a look. http://m.sfgate.com/sfchron/db_106665/contentdetail.htm?contentguid+EY9cX8oz

You want to hear some other responses? many of them were about embarrassing moments when friends overheard people "doing their business" in the stall next door (or seeing it in action in an unlocked stall they had just mistakenly entered), and they find the person is texting or talking, all to the accompaniment of sounds of nature.

• A pastor told me about a purse ringing in the hospital room as a person was dying, and the Keystone Cops Scramble to try to silence it. 
• A friend remembered being caught talking on her ear bud, while her purse was talking back to her, her cell phone set on speaker-phone. 
• A nurse practitioner told me about a woman texting while getting a pelvic exam (now that's calm).
• A cousin heard a phone go off in a live performance of "Romeo and Juliet."
• Many have heard them in church services or funerals or even in the line to receive the Eucharist, hearing the parting comment from the phonee, "Gotta go. I'm just about ready to receive Communion."
• One saw a cell phone being used on the Wild Mouse at Six Flags.
• Another in a drumming class, when the instructor talked on the phone as eight students banged the drums loudly.
• And the sweetest was a confession from a contrite, former parishioner who told me, "I only used it one time during your sermons, Diana, but it was to make myself a note about a book you had recommended."

It's obvious that something is happening to make people so attracted to this device.

That's where the thought re-enters about prayer.

I don't know if I'm justifying what really might be more of an addiction than a forum for connection, but I've thought about how much we humans need to link. I think we're made that way so that there will be more than one generation. But also because linking with others really is fun or interesting or provocative or tender or at least it gives us something to gripe about.

But, this is the part that doesn't happen on a cell phone: We're also made to link with something beyond ourselves. Like the difference between looking at a YouTube of beautiful trees and actually smelling them, touching them, walking and standing by them, your body in connection, through space, with those trees. Participating, not observing.

It's like the difference between reading People magazine and watching friends bring a paralyzed person through the ceiling of a house to get close to a physician who can heal her. Just saying.

And so, this need to connect, to link, to relate -- that's what compels me to get on FB or email. That very thing. I want to know what you're thinking and doing. I want to laugh at your antics. I want to have you in my life. And to some extent, it is so much like prayer, because when I pray for you day after day, you become something different in my heart. My heart softens for you. My compassion grows. And in the same way, seeing you often on FB softens my heart for you. 

But sometims, this constant striving to be connected and to get input from you does just exactly the opposite. Sometimes it keeps me from seeing what's going on in my own back yard.

Autumn 2011 in our backyard

It keeps me from seeing the squirrel outside my window right now that have been trying for an hour to get access to the sunflower seeds in the bird feeder we just hung up.

Oftentimes it keeps me from being still. And quiet. Being on my cell phone often makes me more agitated, especially when there are no new postings or no new responses to what I have posted. I see glimmers of addiction, but I brush them off, just like the zinger mentioned earlier.

I read less. I learn about you but it is shallow. I could learn more by reading or by sitting down and talking with you.

Others have experienced this, too. Several folks have put a link on FB about a dinner game that's being played called "Phone Stacking." Everyone puts their phones in a stack in the middle of the table. The first one who picks up their phone to respond to a text, call, or email pays for the meal.

Do we, with this innate need to connect, use the cell phone instead of really connecting -- with each other (as this game wants to change) and with the divine?

For those of you who consciously pray, FB can seem like prayer: we say what we think, what we want, and we desire answers in return. When we get answers, we feel connected to the writer. Most of the time, it makes me feel happy to hear from you. I like connecting.

But in the end, FB and emailing doesn't really fill me up like being in your presence. Really getting to know your life and what has made you who you are today gives me so much more. And further, this technology (and I'm not going to give it up completely!) doesn't really satisfy. It's like when I wanted to please my new husband 42 years ago. He said he'd love to have a cherry pie every day. I did it. But his desire didn't last long. He wanted other things to eat and taste and enjoy.

That's where real prayer comes from, I think. 15-30 minutes a day in silence, repeating words from the wise ones that I've committed to memory over the years. Slowly going through these words that direct me beyond my own provincial experiences to a place of utter peace. And it is out of this peace that I can move into the world and get to know the person who is in front of me.

Stay connected!