Bibles and Cell Phones

I don't know about you, but I've seen this image popping up on Facebook and Twitter lately. Does it look familiar? If you haven't looked at any of the pictures that I've posted, I highly encourage to the point of pleading please look at this one.

I don't know about you, but I am usually lost without my cell phone. I check my mail, my bank balance, play games, Facebook, this blog, communicate, and even pray with it in my hands. I'm bored waiting for an appointment, let's play Temple Run 2. Trying to better plan out my day, lets look at Evernote or my calendars. Trying to get some deeper level of prayer in adoration, try Laudate or iBreviary. (Yes I have used my cell phone as a prayer book in Adoration. Yes I've had to explain it to little old ladies. It is embarrassing.) But I am completely and thoroughly attached to this electronic leash that I can't get rid of.

Then I look at my Bible. I have two which are mine and a couple dozen floating around my office that occasionally make their way home too. But of the two that are my own I have one that is a paperback, slightly dog eared at the corners and never written in. The other has been graffitied, decorated, highlighted, has a broken spine, pages falling out, duct tape and smoke damaged. I shouldn't use it as a reading Bible but it serves a much deeper reminder.

My very worn Bible. Can you see where the cracked spine is?

I look at the above image and acknowledge, that even though I access prayer apps and occasionally the daily readings on my phone, my Bible lays stagnant.  I can't help but get mentally caught on the "... turned back to get it if we forgot it?"

The spine has broken here completely in half. The two halves are held with duct tape.

When I was 22, I was student teaching, preparing for end of year finals which I was writing the finals for students. I was living with my extended family when their home was caught in a house fire. It was a huge fire that impacted two other houses that were nearby. When I was trying to get my composure and get out I grabbed my Bible, cell phone and other necessities. I couldn't think clearly until I heard in my head "drop everything and get out" in my father's voice. My father was a firefighter and always stressed the need to get out when a fire struck. I thought I had dropped everything when I ran downstairs and saw my cousin, (who's about 65) on the phone in his kitchen calling 911 as I'm watching the sliding glass door 10 feet behind him melting in an oozy pile of orange glass. I yelled at him to get out scooped up my shoes and ran outside.

In the few moments after I hit the fresh air I looked and saw that I was wearing shoes with my pajamas and holding my cell phone. I used my phone to call my family and try to find a place to stay but my beloved Bible was dropped from my hands and was sitting on the floor of the bedroom where I had been staying. Once the fire was completely put out, I was able to go back in and I got my Bible.

Evidence of smoke damage in the front cover

I was at a crisis of faith. I had chosen to leave an object significant of my faith behind when I had the chance. I wasn't proud of that and I wanted to leave the church behind. I was simply going through the motions of faith because I knew it would make my family happy. After brooding and being bitter about it, I worked my way back to going to Confession. The priest that heard me had only been ordained the day before. He was new, I was in pain and he truly had the graces from God I needed to come back fully to church, even though I never fully left.

As Catholics we declare that the Bible in its entirety is the Divinely inspired Word of God. It is a true gift of faith to be utilized, studied and prayed with. I wasn't proud that I left my Bible in such a hurried disordered way. Living a life, regardless of how short it was without the word of God was painful. The very top image illustrates quite poignantly why the Bible is important in our lives and what would the impact be if we had the same need for the Word of God as we did Facebook or Twitter.

This Bible in particular I received while on retreat and in the front cover was a message which I am glad to share with you.

New Sheep Smell

Since I've been blogging again, I have had the opportunity to read more blogs. This morning on the top of my feed pile was this little article from Pat Archbold from the NCR Blogs titled "Archbishop: Bloggers not Catholic". Needless to say as a Catholic Blogger, it got me scratching my head. I was hesitant, to say the least, to believe what I was reading. Every part of me wanted to scream at the computer that social media and outlets like blogs are the forefront of the current push of the New Evangelization. That being said, I needed to read the homily that was quoted.

Thanks to Catholicmemes. com

This homily comes from the Archbishop of Westminster, Archbishop Vincent Nichols' Mass for Pope Francis from April 10, 2013. Please read it in it's entirety, I found it wonderfully insightful, including today's topic.

One of my favorite quotes from this homily is as follows "Pope Francis is telling us, more than once, that he sees the Church at its best when it is outward looking, going forth to meet people in the specific circumstances of their lives. Memorably he prompted us priests to go out and come back 'smelling like our sheep!'"

As a faithful Church, we need to be interpersonal in our relationships with those that we meet and not be stuck to our same pew, time and quick handshakes at the sign of peace. Pope Francis has been wonderful in this respect through his way of handling his personal affairs. This has been evident since day one of his Papacy. We have a Pope who remembers who he serves and that the best place to serve is at their side.

At the same time, I am not a priest, but I work with teens. The "sheep" I work with smell like they've been drenched in Axe, Old Spice or other cologne/perfume with a heavy dose of insecurity and coming into their own in a highly digitized world where the most "liked" piece of anything becomes law. I serve them, so I spend a lot of time working with them personally and through outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Google+, and finding the hazards of places like Snapchat and Pheed. As an adult, it is a scary place, as a teen, all of these places look like a slice of freedom.

But at the same time, with freedom comes immense responsibility. There are many teens who cannot yet grasp that. That's when we hear of cyber bullying, trolling and using these media outlets for pornographic messages of themselves. Please note that not all teens are doing this, but this is a staggering upward trend.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols continues by saying;

He has said that when the Church fails to look outward, then it is 'self referential' preoccupied with itself. Then, he added, 'inadvertently she believes she has her own light, and is not dependant totally on Christ for receiving and reflecting his light. If this happens, then the Church (those in the Church) live to give glory only to one another and not to the rest of the world.'

Yesterday, I mentioned how through loving others I see God working through them and with them in their lives, regardless of their knowledge of God. When we fail to love, through sin, we stop reflecting Christ's light and look at each other as a commodity or as an object.

Archbishop Nichols, after speaking about Peter returning to Christ says this:

The Church must be a community rooted in the love of the Lord. 

Pope Francis understands this in practical terms. He has already identified two kinds of behavior that destroy love in the Church. They are complaining and gossiping. He is a practical man. He knows that we live in a society in which complaining and gossip is a standard fare. They sell newspapers and attract us to blogs because we love hear complaints and to read gossip.

But Pope Francis is clear: they should have no place in the Church.

From reading this section of his homily I am momentarily confused. Because of the article from Pat Archbold I am already predisposed to read this as newspapers and blogs should not exist. As a Catholic who blogs, I should take offense and write something angry. On the other hand, within the context of the entire homily, I read that Archbishop Nichols meant that complaining and gossiping have no place in the Church. I don't know about you but we could add things like, spamming, trolling, enticing arguments, and using demeaning words and phrases to what we do as a digital culture.

http://xkcd.com/386/

For example, if you have ever read Youtube comments or many comment sections of mainstream blogs, you will almost always find someone who tries to anger someone else. They often succeed and the responses are often ridiculous. These comments would rarely be said if a person had been talking face to face with another.

Internet outlets have the ability to unite and divide people very quickly. People, and I'm guilty about this too, become so polarized with a topic, they believe that the author is speaking only to them and they have to defend a position. The above comic from www.xkcd.com always makes me chuckle. I know people like that character; I have occasionally been that character. At the same time, I know that I can choose to engage and "defend" or I can take a breath, think about what I've read, and thoughtfully engage.

Above all, I cannot pretend to know what Archbishop Nichols intended with his homily. From the date, topic, and tone of the overall message, I can infer that he is encouraging we as the Catholic faithful to engage more fully in our faith and communities. To get dirty and work amongst the "sheep" we encounter. It so happens that most of the people I encounter are tech savvy, internet based, and ready to show they have a voice in the world. So, there I will be, right alongside of them, tears, triumphs and smells included.