Generation Gap

I saw this great cartoon the other day, and I wish I could reproduce it here. Alas, words must suffice.

Two couples were sitting at restaurant table--an older couple and a younger couple. The older couple are obviously enjoying their time together, talking and looking into one another's eyes. The younger couple both have their cell phones in their hands. The caption?

"I hope when we're old we don't just sit at a table not texting."

Cell Phones and Silence

Continuing the cell phone theme . . .


In the 11/2/09 edition of Newsweek, columnist Julia Baird reminds us that, in C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, the devil brags that "We will make the whole universe a noise . . . We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end." She explains that Christian scholars in medieval times believed that Satan did not want people to have time alone with God or their fellowman in which they could be "fully alert and listening."

Baird mentions a book by Sara Maitland, a British author who traveled through deserts and hills and spent 40 days in an isolated house in the remote Scottish Highlands in an attempt to discover what silence truly is. Maitland "believes the mobile phone is a 'major breakthrough for the powers of hell.'" In her work, A Book of Silence, Maitland says, "I am convinced that as a whole society we are losing something precious in our increasingly silence-avoiding culture, and that somehow, whatever this silence might be, it needs holding, nourishing, and unpacking."

Baird reveals that Maitland's book made her "realize what a profound longing many of us have for silence, how hard it is to find, and how easily we forget how much we need it." Baird concludes, "I know, [this article] sounds like the lament of the Luddite. But if generations of mystics and seekers have insisted that there's something that connects silence with the sublime, you have to wonder what we are distracting ourselves from--and who we could be if, every now and then, we paused."

I do believe humans have a longing for silence. I know I do. I love to be in a silent house. I can stay home all day, doing chores, reading, whatever, without ever turning on the TV or the radio, but I rarely get to spend a day like this. Many people turn on the TV as soon as they get up, but continuous electronic background chatter shreds my nerves. It's been a long time ago now, but I remember one of the most moving HU chapels I've ever experienced was devoted to silence. No one said a word while messages on the screen in front of us challenged our dependence on electronic noise and busyness and encouraged us to spend more time "being still and knowing."

I'm not against electronic gadgets. I've got a lot of them--laptop, BlackBerry, ipod, etc. I use them and I like having them. At the same time, I often feel as if they are more in charge of my time than I am. I read the other day of a communications professor who challenged her students to go on a technology fast for one weekend--from Friday at the end of class until classes resumed Monday morning. Her students were aghast. They really didn't think it was possible.

I think Maitland's book may have to be added to my must-read list.

Off My Chest

I read in the paper the other day that Cheyenne, Wyoming, has outlawed the use of hand-held cell phones while driving. Of course, there's an uproar. "We have the right to bear a cell phone," one angry citizen protested. "If I'm driving down the road, minding my own business and talking on my cell phone, leave me alone," said another. There were lots of versions of "Nobody has the right to tell me what to do." One man claimed he needed to use his cell phone to keep track of his five children. Maybe he should have thought of that before . . . Never mind.

I'm not against cell phone use. I've got one myself, and I use it regularly. But I can totally understand why the idea of passing a law like this might be attractive to some people. I don't know how many times I've sat behind a vehicle at an intersection waiting, waiting, waiting for the driver to notice that the light's turned green while he or she has been talking away on a cell phone. The other day, my husband was driving down Beebe-Capps when a woman in a big SUV in the lane next to him (going the same direction) came half-way over into his lane, forcing him onto the shoulder. She was talking on her cell phone and never even noticed. Several years ago, my daughter was rear-ended while stopped at a red light by a girl who was speeding and, you guessed it, also talking on her cell phone.

Now I'm on a roll. I also get tired of overhearing personal conversations in public places--especially in restrooms where the conversation echoes . . . echoes . . . echoes . . . I really don't want to hear about how you can't decide if you should get your tubes tied or not. Or how drunk you got last weekend. Or what a bum your ex is. I don't want to stand behind you in the checkout line when you can't even place your items onto the conveyor belt because your phone conversation is taking all your attention. I find it extremely frustrating to wait behind you at the counter when you don't even realize it's your turn to place your lunch order because you can't hang up your phone for five minutes. One restaurant in Oxford had a sign at the counter: "If you're on your phone, you're not in line." Thank you, management. We've even gone out to dinner at nice restaurants and been unable to carry on a conversation because we couldn't hear over the guy yelling into his phone at the next table. Please, people, pay attention! And show some courtesy!

Whew. I feel better now.

Sunday Funnies