One thing at the top of my New Year’s Resolution list for 2009 will be this: “Practice the virtue of being present at all times.” Of course, as I write this, I have my phone within reach, my iPod charging at home, my calendar open on my desk, various books scattered about with pages marked from the last time I stopped reading, two bulletins that I am proofing, my hymnal, a half-dozen notecards and more than three pens and pencils scattered about. This “being present” thing is not something that comes naturally to me. We are a distracted people.
When I drive through Bowling Green and bemoan how many college students are texting as they walk to class, I am also aware at how many people my age and older break into a nervous sweat if they cannot find their Blackberry or cell phone… and how man portable electronic devices I own myself. We are a very distracted people.
Let me be clear. I’m not fussing about technology. Rather, I am worried about how all this “need to be somewhere else” stuff is forming us, about what kind of people we are becoming. What all this is doing to us is giving us the false promise that “somewhere or someone else” is always better or more exciting than where (or with whom) I am now. You know the feeling: You’re out to dinner or lunch and your companion takes a cell phone call and talks on and on. Inside you’re yelling, “But I’m right here, sitting in front of you!” This fall I saw a child, who looked to be about 9 years old, go up and sit next to his father on the park bench. His dad was on a call with his bluetooth headset and never even acknowledged his presence. After about 10 minutes (plenty of time, I thought), the boy just got up and went back to play.
It also hits close to home. It is troubling to me when I am at home playing with my children and realize that while I’m there in body, my mind and heart are elsewhere: usually thinking about work.
It’s almost Christmas time, and so it’s probably a good thing to contemplate Mary’s response to the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ: Luke 2:19: But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. Sure, the Shepherds are running here and there, telling the news, but Mary, like all good mothers, holds that tiny newborn in her arms and gazes into his eyes. For there is no better place to be in the world than right here, right now, for that is where God is.