...Walk/Thy step they words/The road, thy song/the fatigue, thy prayer/And thy silence, finally thy speech…/Walk/Already, God walks with thee. - from Camino de Santiago Forum
In October I wrote about how I had gotten a new cell phone the Friday before school started. What I can now add to the story is the two and half months of unexpected aggravation this new phone caused.
Between learning how to use all the many features it has that the old one lacked, dealing with apps that don’t function properly, of which I’m still at a loss to understand why this is so or how to correct it (phone calls to tech support have been useless), to deciding to more fully embrace social media now that I had a phone that allowed such, among other things, my phone essentially consumed me. I became a most unpleasant person to be around as aggravation upon aggravation piled up in my life seemingly every time I turned around. And if my deplorable behavior wasn’t bad enough I was, later, more than a bit embarrassed at how long it took for me to get a clue and see what was indeed happening; and then work on making the necessary changes. While obviously one of Our Blessed Mother’s slower children, my daily meditations with her finally had an effect on me, and I saw I had lost my way.
During this whole messy ordeal, while there were times I would liked to have thrown my phone in the trash, there were too many things I liked, appreciated, and had come to rely on about it that this wasn’t a feasible solution to the situation. By the grace of God, I settled on another plan and what I did was to reconcile myself with this technology that I had allowed to take charge of my life, guessing it wasn’t the tool that was the problem, but rather the user.
One of the things I did was to see what my spiritual mentors had to say so I could, in good conscious, continue enjoying the benefits of the new phone and social media; and as I said, my hunch was on target—I was the problem not the tool. From Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI to Pope Francis and others in between, the consensus was that, as with all things, our current forms of communications are also beautiful gifts from God, and we the users make the choice to use them wisely or unwisely; we have the ability for such good with these new forms of communication that we simply must employ them to the best of their potential to reach out to people, meeting them where they are.
That said, while learning to appreciate and wisely use these tools that lay in my hands was a needed goal, more importantly my first concern really was how I was absenting God from my life, letting something other than our Lord consume me, and what I was going to do to remedy this. By providence during this time I came across an article about the spiritual classic “The Way of a Pilgrim,” a simple recounting of one man’s quest to understand the Biblical command to pray without ceasing. In the article, while giving the basic outline of this Russian classic from the Eastern tradition, Bishop Barron compares how he would probably feel and react were his iPhone to go missing to what the Pilgrim experiences in losing his cherished Bible and having it restored to him later. Since I was working through a cell phone dilemma, as well as getting refocused on God, he had my attention. One of the things that struck a cord with me was how the bishop pointed out that not that long ago he was perfectly fine without a cell phone. Having only had a basic cell phone for a few years myself—and one with all the current capabilities a mere 4 months—and got along quite fine without during that time, I knew this article had come along at the right moment. Needless to say I went out right away and got a copy of this humble book because it seemed a fitting antidote to my displaced focus.
Again by providence Bishop Barron last week posted a video on “The Way of a Pilgrim,” which I’ve linked below. Whether or not you have too strong of an attachment to technology that needs working on or are a bit of a techno-phobe, do watch the video, as well as read this journey to God by a simple, humble pilgrim. You will be all the better for it—whether it improves how you utilize technology, it will provide nourishment to strengthen your relationship with God.
4 January 2017
I have been tweeting most of the modern beatitude quick-write the 8th graders did several months back, but this one from Bianca fit well with the article that I include it here.
Old: Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.
New: Blessed are the humble in media, for they will gain more in the spirit of God.
link to video: http://www.wordonfire.org/resources/video/bishop-barron-on-the-way-of-a-pilgrim/5359/