Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Satan’s Devices
I’m still unhappy about what happened in church Sunday. We were following the sermon–an encouraging and faith building teaching session on how God uses the seemingly small and mundane incidents in our lives to further His own ends. Then someone’s phone dinged once. I felt irritated, but it was once. Then it dinged again. And then again. Not really loud, but enough to be a distraction.
I’m thinking, Really? Can’t you just shut that off for a little while? Is it that hard? (I had switched mine to vibrate right before church.) Then it just kept up with clusters of chimes throughout the service. I turned around slightly trying to figure out who it might be. I thought I had her pegged, a young woman who appeared to be openly texting in church. Mentally, I made a list of options for her: put it on vibrate, take it outside, or wait until later. I tried to imagine what could be so important that one had to carry on a text conversation right there. A medical emergency of some sort? Still, come on.
My younger daughter leaned over and asked if it was me. Nope, I had turned my sound off. People are something else. But I started to feel uneasy. When it was time to stand up, I picked up my purse and subtly checked my phone. Oh, horrors — there was a string of messages on the display. From my sister. I checked the switch. Instead of turning the sound off before church, I had turned it on. It had already been on vibrate from earlier that day. Sigh. My sister had chosen that morning to have a big group exchange with family members. About the weather in California, primarily, with bonus screenshot of the night’s temperature report from my little brother.
I feel like I owe the pastor an apology. I can remind him that this is one of those “little things” that God will use for His ultimate purposes. Right?
Published in Humor
This should all be solved when instead of audible notifications we get implants in our right hands or foreheads to keep us plugged in.
I will say I get really annoyed when people call/text me Sunday morning. My phone’s muted, so it doesn’t make a difference, but surely I’ve lived my faith enough for people to know that I’m at church before noon on Sunday and that there’s no point in trying to contact me for anything less than an emergency.
Funny that. I was on the way this am to pick up a friend – we’re heading out of town for a few days.
She and her husband were proud luddites – their time and their privacy was way too precious for a cell phone ! Which was all well and good until I started getting all the phone calls from their kids and their kids’ schools.
The day I spent with one of their barfing daughters while they were at the LA County Fair ending their reign of inaccessibility
This was an unfortunate convergence of time zone difference, membership in a family text group, an unusual Sunday correspondence, and my rushing to turn “off” my phone sound right before the service started.
People are funny.
Twenty-some years ago I was on a business trip to Madison Wisconsin. During a brief lunch break, I jumped into my rental car and drove quickly to a nearby Taco Bell, where I discovered a crowded lobby and a moderate line at the drive-through. I chose the latter, took my position in the queue, and settled to wait.
Noticing that my shoe was untied, I bent down to tie it — after first carefully checking to see that the line ahead of me wasn’t moving.
Immediately someone honked at me. I sat up, confirmed that the cars ahead still hadn’t moved, and wondered about the mindset of anyone who felt a need to honk their horn in a drive-through pickup line. I’m a particularly patient fellow, but it seemed to me that everyone should understand that it did no good to vent frustration to similarly trapped drivers.
But when I bent down to finish tying my shoe, the horn again sounded — and it was then that I realized that I was bumping the overly sensitive horn button with my shoulder in the cramped little rental car.
I’ve often wondered what the woman in the car head of me thought, given that what she observed was a man repeatedly ducking down below the dash and honking his horn at her.
Uurg, my Subaru car horn is like that. From the perspective of other drivers, I’ll pull into a parking space and then emit a robust honk, apparently just for kicks. It’s embarrassing.
Since I’ve gotten an Apple watch, I no longer have the turn-off, turn-on problem. I leave my phone on vibrate all the time. When there is a call, it comes through on my watch with no ringing, just a tap to my wrist. If I can’t answer, I put my hand over the face of the watch and it closes off the call. Text messages come through with a little tap also. I can quickly respond by choosing a pre-set response. I LOVE this! I don’t miss calls any more and don’t have to go through the trying to remember to turn on and off at the proper times. Another perk is that I no longer have to dive for my phone buried in my purse when I am out–I can just answer on my watch!! (Don’t tell my students, but I have actually answered a text while teaching a class.)
Chorb mark! This is one of my greatest unreasonable fears to have my phone go off in church. I would have reacted exactly as you. Kohb kunh kop.
Our young priest left his phone in his pocket when he was saying a Latin Mass. Siri told him she didn’t understand what he had asked.
I will note this: my phone ringer is a church bell, and my text alert is a hand bell. So if God forbid my phone goes off in church (for instance during a service outside my preset muting), my hope is that people will just assume someone has dropped something in the choir loft. :D
Lovely honesty. Now I will doubly make sure my phone is on silent.
Please be advised that my non-ownership of a cellphone has not and does not create additional duties for anyone. On the other hand, it is my wish for everyone to (occasionally) put down their cell phones, take time to enjoy and smell the coffee, talk and even make eye contact talk with the other people sitting at your table.
Yes, please…Something for which I devoutly wish…In God’s time of course. :-)