CELLPHONE INVASION!

WORRY, WORRY

I spent much of this week preoccupied with worrying about a very dear friend who was undergoing surgery on Friday the 22nd. I kept praying for her, of course, but mostly worrying. Finally, on Friday morning, I remembered to just hand her over to the Lord, and let Jesus watch over her and the surgeons. It worked, as it usually does: As soon as I let go of my fears and gave them to the Lord, they vanished. Why does it always take me so long to do that? (By the way, the surgery was postponed because of an emergency in the operating room. It's rescheduled for the 28th. I hope I'll be better prepared next time.)

That was yesterday morning. But by noon I was already getting upset about another problem. Our business office is switching credit card companies. No problem, right? The new ones are more interactive, allowing you to access your account information any time you want -- provided you have a cellphone. Which I do not. I can't even sign up for a new card because the company wants to communicate with me by text message on my mobile phone. So now I start to get into a tizzy over this. Believe it or not, I tossed and turned all Friday night worrying about this impasse. 

I went down to church this morning to spend my usual meditation period in front of the Blessed Sacrament, dragging with me the problem of the credit card. As soon as I started to pray over my problem, though, I realized that twenty-four hours ago I'd been sitting in the same chair worried about a different problem, my friend's surgery. I smiled to myself: Why does it always take me so long to hand over my problems to the Lord instead of wasting energy by fretting over them by myself?

So, I got out my prayer journal and wrote down my formal handing over of my cellphone problem to Jesus. Now He's the one with the cellphone problem.

WHAT, NO CELLPHONE?

I once heard that over 90% of adults in the U.S. have cellphones. Recently I heard a lower estimate, but one thing is for certain: they are starting to become almost indispensable for daily life. For instance, when I signed up on line for my Covid-19 vaccine shot, I was asked for my cellphone number so that the office could confirm my appointment via text message.

God texting Adam

I don't want a cellphone. In the monastery the name of the game is to reduce external distractions to a

minimum so as to concentrate better on our single-minded search for God.. That's why we have a cloister. So now I'm supposed to get a cellphone and bring it into my monastic cell and deal with pings and beeps and vibrations, and pay attention to text messages that for the most part are unimportant. (Somehow I've struggled through life so far without ever receiving a single text message.)

I understand that some monks have jobs that require a lot of back-and-forth messaging, and I've got no beef with that. I imagine that I would have been shooting messages all over the place when I was a school administrator. But at this point in my life I don't have any responsibilities that require my immediate, constant up-to-the-second communication with anybody (except with God, but that's for another post). So I've always resisted having a cellphone, considering it just another way for the "world" to breach the walls of my monastic cell and of my inner peace (which still eludes me much of the time). 

So, how will I solve the dilemma of the new credit card? Not my problem; ask Jesus.