Invisible people

During one of the lunch breaks at our seminar on transitional leadership, we walked to a Pita Pit next door. I had a gyro (pronounced euro, apparently) and a mango smoothie, as close as I can get to the real thing. Before we ate, one of the men prayed, just casually, eyes open. I told him I hadn’t seen many people try that. Most of us do the bow-your-head-and-close-your-eyes thing even in public spaces. I find it very hard to break this 50 year old habit. The other guy, Anglican background, said he didn’t mind prayers that moved away from this style, but that they didn’t communicate the respect we hold for God, somehow. For me it’s a question of where do you look when you’re talking to someone invisible.

But we actually do this all the time—talk to invisible people—and we do it very naturally, eyes open, often gesturing with our hands and nodding our heads as if the person can see us. We do this even when we’re in the middle of a group of people, and in fact phone courtesy now requires that you move away so as not to interrupt the group’s interaction with your one-sided conversation. So my next question was how did the men think cell phones would affect prayer? (Robert had been thinking we were meeting to talk about apprenticeships, but I didn’t know this  and unwittingly hijacked the conversation, sorry.) Would we all start talking to God like we talk to any other invisible person, eyes open but disengaged, hands gesturing, head moving? What would it be like to put God on my phone as a speed dial and just talk to him as I’d talk to one of my friends? What about texting him? Would that be prayer? Would it keep me as connected as the whippersnappers keep connected now with their social media? Do they intuitively already know the purpose of prayer?

I don’t think God cares what devices or postures we use, but as humans with bodies, these matter to us. In two minutes, you can change your self-esteem with a simple power pose, or your happiness with a pencil between your teeth. The Bible is full of different styles and postures for different occasions: for us, postures and devices matter. Although my favorite image of prayer is Robert Duvall's character in The Apostle where he paces the room, arguing with God so loudly he upsets the neighbors, I prefer journaling (which my own Robert finds impossible), because it seems both loud and silent at once, the perfect combination.

You'd think I'd find a transition to texting on a phone easy, but no, my kids make fun of me for how slow I am, poking out my message with one halting thumb, never abbreviating (I had to ask what ttyl was) and always correcting my mistakes. It’s a new world. And alien, too, always inventing new tongues and new agendas for us, keeping us young. I got a text from Dawnelle that said “elle pixels faire” and from Diana that said “soery tupo.” From someone else I got: sunshine for cast will be helpful, and I wondered if she knew something I didn’t. I sent a Spanish (I thought) message to Simi assuring her I was,  “taking out a tuna casserole.” Gotta watch your phone, or it will start inviting people over for dinner without you. I started calling my hospital St. Catharsis because I found it easier to agree with the phone than argue with it every time. My favorite cell phone message was when I was in ER for the third time and got this message from Rosalyn: “You have been in error this whole time?” There just doesn’t seem to be a good answer for that.

Technology changes our lives, even our lives with God. Churches put powerful sermons that motivate us on screens and on podcasts  and show us video clips that call us to action. I just watched the Skit Guys do their Chisel on youtube because it was a sermon illustration at church. The Mixtecs I know buy huge sound systems, set them in doorways of church buildings, and blast their music out into public space. Makes you wonder how Jesus and the early church got as far as they did without all this stuff. But this is our culture, perhaps not forever, and certainly not everywhere, and we adapt. So is there a way that technology can help people who aren’t used to doing this thing, carrying on an apparently one-sided conversation with an invisible God? Can it pull God more naturally into the room where he belongs, right into public spaces beside us, without setting us apart with what might appear to others as church culture? Is it relevant that for some cultures ( some Mixtecs, for example) there is no such thing as “praying in your head”? I don’t know. I’m just wondering. Jesus faced the issue of never being able to address God with any name at all. Even the pronunciation had been lost. But with one stroke, Jesus solved this conundrum by bringing God into the room as Dad.  Not that cell-phone praying compares, but are there ways for us to bring God closer to others by how we pray?

 What I really want is for praying to become more like breathing: constant, urgent, automatic, necessary. If holding a cell phone in hand helps, then so be it. Maybe by the time I die, I’ll get the hang of it. My other idea is to keep a card in my pocket with meaty, liturgical, make-you-think prayers typed on both sides, and to take that out and read it when I’m at Tim Hortons (with Robert, of course--coffee got wiped off my food list, too). No wait, I could download that on my cell phone.