I’m not trying to tell God how to do his job, but I do have a few pointers.
Let me back up. Yesterday, I spent a full 20 hours without even touching my phone. This magnificent feat of self control came about because I lost my phone.
It’s a long story, and it involves a tragically stupid string of bad choices on my part, but where it ended was me ripping open a bag of wet dirt and bits of broken glass, and not finding my phone in there, and then hoisting that up and ripping open a second bag of wet dirt and bits of broken glass that was under the first one, and there, buried in the dirt, was my phone. It still turned on, and I was glad to have it back. Mostly.
I do need my phone. I really do. But I need it for far less than I actually use it, and it was a nice 20 hours without it. I didn’t read a single headline about the president. I didn’t get in any fights with strangers over things I don’t know much about. I didn’t scroll miserably past hundreds of ads for things I couldn’t afford. I didn’t watch any videos of morbidly obese people getting yelled at or of hoarders weeping over their dirty junk. And it was easy to say my prayers, because I didn’t have my phone making the case that it, and not God, deserved my attention first.
Without my phone, I sat outside in the morning sun and slowly drank my coffee. I listened to the birds and tried to figure out who they were without the aid of an app. I went down to the stream and collected some pretty bits of porcelain that had washed up and lodged in the banks. I fed the ducks and collected their eggs; I washed my hands; I prepped dinner in peace. And then I went back outside and made one last-ditch effort to find my phone. And then I found it.
This is a long way of telling you that I know very well, and have known all along, that I use my phone too much. I know what it’s doing to me (making me dumb and mean and boring and sad) and to my life (making it hard to get anything done). But it’s also doing enough good things, and desirable things, and habit-forming things, that it’s super, super hard to put it down.
So yesterday, God yoinked it right out of my pocket and buried it in trash where it belongs, and then he left me to draw my own conclusions.
This is a good start! But I think He could take this approach further, because I have a lot of other bad habits I could use some help getting ahead of. I think he may not realize how dumb I am and how devoted to ruining my life. He gives me too much credit, and believes I have free will, and that it would be more valuable for me to decide to build virtue, rather than being forced into it like a rabid raccoon into a cage.
I’m not telling God how to do His job. But I do have a few pointers. . . . Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.
Image: Adam and Eve by Jacob Jordaens via Wikipedia Commons
Very tongue in cheek, I like it.
This is in my top 5 favorites!