Waiting for a flight in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport last Friday, I noticed a middle-aged woman across the corridor talking and gesturing enthusiastically. She was alone. I glanced opposite her to see if perhaps someone on my side of the corridor was gesturing back but did not see anyone.
When it was time to board the flight, I became aware that the same woman was in line directly in front of me, still talking, still gesturing. It was then I realized she was on a headset cell phone, so small that even up-close I could not actually see it. She still looked as if she was talking to the air; she was less than a foot in front of me, but her gestures pointed to some far away place.
Once on board, I couldn’t help but overhear every word of the cell phone conversations of the man seated directly behind me: swimming lessons, the vendor in Kansas City, business strategies, re-scheduled meetings. He was on the same flight as I and 60 other passengers, yet his attention was focused elsewhere, many miles distant.
There’s no doubt the age of wireless communication has made things easier for many people, including me. But I wonder if speed and accessibility don’t also carry significant hazards. Let me reflect on two of them.
First, instant messages are sent in expectation of instant responses. On the one hand, that such communication is possible is nothing short of miraculous. On the other hand, the expectation of instantaneousness causes everyone’s engines to rev up a few thousand revolutions, adding stress to already overloaded lives. I wouldn’t be surprised if millions of secretaries (including mine!) would be a little happier if not as instantaneously accessible to their bosses and coworkers.
Second, wireless communication has the unfortunate consequence of intentionally diverting our attention from where we actually are at the moment to far-away places, far-away projects. We talk and gesture at the air, and make long-distance arrangements with unseen colleagues, all the while ignoring the people right next to us. Witness the number of people who talk on cell phones while at the wheel.
I’m not a social scientist and leave to others the long-term ramifications of those observations. I am a spiritual leader, however, and I wonder whether the two hazards I mention don’t carry with them some perilous spiritual side effects.
What do I do if God does not answer my prayers as swiftly as I would like? What if when I pray I feel like I’m speaking to the air and wonder if anyone is listening? What if I attend Mass but don’t see myself as taking part in “communal prayer.” What if my attention is so continuously focused elsewhere that I fail to notice the people, the messages, the blessings, right in front of me?
I have a feeling that much of the time in my prayer, God is trying to begin the conversation by saying, “Peter, slow down. Wait. Look around this chapel. Make yourself present to Me. I am already present to you. Presence is more important than words. Waiting for me is the best antidote to the stress of your fast-paced day.”
In the past two weeks, I have had the pleasure of celebrating Mass at two small missions in our diocese, St. Richard in Bald Knob, and St. Joseph the Worker in Corning. It was immediately apparent that parishioners were present to one another, knew one another and noticed one another at Mass. They participated communally in the songs and responses and expressed interest in one another’s lives. The same things happen in large parishes, of course, but perhaps not as easily. It is quite possible to attend Sunday Mass as if passing through an airport, acting as if Sunday worship is a private affair conducted in the presence of others, mostly strangers.
It is important to remember that “I” participate at Mass as part of a community – the family of God, the body of Christ, the Church. There should be periods of deliberate silence for private prayer during Mass; I personally have always valued those times. But Mass is also communal prayer, when “we” pray to our Heavenly Father, when “we” offer the sacrifice with Christ. We may not know the names of everyone in church on Sunday morning, but in him we are sisters and brothers called together for the Eucharist. We owe it to one another on Sunday morning to give our all to participation at Mass.
Wherever I find myself – at church, work or the airport – there is something which in this place, at this time, and with these people, God wishes to teach me. If there is a way to apply the word “instantaneous” to the spiritual life, it is that the present, the here and now, is bursting with God’s presence. It is a hazard to assume that God is “there” but not “here,” or that he should respond to my prayer as quickly as I expect my e-mails to receive a response.
We do not wait for God because he is far away. We wait for him precisely because he is near, here, in more ways than we can count. We have only to watch, to listen, to notice those around us, and to make ourselves present to him.
Do you have an intention for Bishop Sartain’s prayer? If so, send it to him at Bishop Sartain’s Prayer List, Diocese of Little Rock, 2500 North Tyler St., P.O. Box 7239, Little Rock, AR 72217.