Like most people these days, I have a mobile phone and use it for all kinds of things. There are the standard apps such as text messaging, email, news services, various “how to I get there” direction services, and the list goes on. Then we get into the specialty apps that are particular to your work, your interests, and avocations minor and grand. I have the iBreviary app on my phone/tablet. Can’t remember the last time I used the hard copy book. Its easy access has let me be far more consistent in the rhythms of daily prayer.
To say mobile devices are ubiquitous even seems like an understatement. Not only are mobile devices omnipresent, they have become de rigueur, mandatory, obligatory, universal, endemic, rampant….and I think I ran out of words. Admit it, when you want to get in touch with someone and they can’t instantly share their contact information using near-field technology, you begin to imagine a 21st century Luddite that might actually want to write the information down on a piece of paper for you.
My mobile phone tells me how much time I spend on it, which really is not too much. Yesterday my largest use was iBreviary. In a distant second place was a virtual tie between test message and email apps. Teens spend 7 hours and 22 minutes on their phones largely connected to the ubiquitous (there’s that word again) social media apps in all its variety and instances. By comparison I am carrying around a paper weight in my pocket.
We shouldn’t be so surprised. After all, at heart we are social beings. But all kinds of energies can be drained down the rabbit hole chasing what’s trending. But then all kinds of good can come about connecting with people/articles/sites that – before were unreachable – and now are a click away. Either way it affects your spirituality.
Take a deep dive into the internet searching for something akin to “cell phones spirituality” and you might be surprised by what turns up. There are a whole range of blogs discussing the meaning of the appearance of cell phones in your dreams. One of the blogs wrote: “God communicates with us through various ways, and that may sometimes come through a cell phone dream.” ….OK…but just because the birds don’t talk to me doesn’t mean they don’t talk.
Refining the query, here are results from a query about cell phones and one’s spiritual life.
- 7 Ways Smartphones Can Enhance Your Spiritual Life
- 3 Ways Smartphones Affect Your Spiritual Life – Southern Equip
- The Spiritual Dangers of Smartphones
- 5 Ways Your Phone Is Stealing Your Life (and How to Stop It)
- Smartphone Addiction and Our Spiritual ADD
- Cell Phone Spirituality: What your cell phone can teach you about life and God.
- 10 Ways Phones Can be Used for Our Good and God’s Glory
Clearly there are admonishments, warning, encouragement and offered wisdom about you, your cell phone, and your spiritual life. Just something I was musing about on my day off.
I vividly remember where I was on July 20, 1969 when humanity reached and landed on the moon. Amazing does not do justice to the feeling of that moment. We had just arrived at the front door of the universe. What did it all mean? Some 53 years later, we have perspective. The writer Adam Roberts wonders if it was a profane moment in our history and our world when we took on a more universal view. 
friarmusings 