Disconnected

My kids and wife love going to the pool. Thankfully one of the perks of being on staff at Antioch is a pool membership. Lindsey and the kids go to the pool frequently however since it's during the day I rarely get to join them. This weekend I had a chance to take the girls twice. Once Saturday morning after breakfast and then Sunday evening we went as a family and had dinner there at the pool. It was nice. Except for that part right at the beginning that both my personal and work cell phones ended up in the pool. oops.

So, I took them apart and placed them on my t-shirt and let them dry out while we finished swimming. On the way home we picked up a bag of rice at the store and placed them in it over night hoping that would do the trick. This morning I get up and put them back together and my work cell phone boots up momentarily (about 15 seconds) before it goes out. My Galaxy Nexus doesn't even attempt to boot up. It just turns on the LED light on the back of it and has it flash in and out. Dang it.

Fortunately we have insurance on our personal phones (and we've filed claims on both our phones this year) so I proceed to file a claim on my phone this morning which is rather easy the way Verizon has it setup. Then I went ahead and notified purchasing of my busted work cell phone. I was issued a replacement this afternoon. However, work is just a basic cell phone not a smart phone.

It was weirdest thing to go to lunch today (during which I normally run errands around time) with no cell phones in my pockets. It's interesting now I have become so accustom to carrying 2 cell phones that I kept checking my pockets while I was out to make sure I hadn't lost them to remember that I didn't have any for the day. You really don't realize how often you check your phone until you go a day without one.

I remember way back in the early 90's (91 or 92 I think) when my dad first got a cell phone. I'm not even sure they were called cell phones at the time I believe they were called portable phones.  I got in his car one day and noticed a bag with an antenna sticking out of it and asked what it was. He said that it was a phone. I was blown away by this! A phone, that you used in the car!

Of course it was huge. You had to keep it plugged into the cigarette outlet since it took hours to charge and you maybe got 30 minutes out of the battery. Also, it was really expensive to use and I was never allowed to make a call with it.

My senior year in high school dad got an upgrade to his bag phone and ended up with a true mobile phone.

You could fit that thing in your pocket! Well provided you had very large pockets like in a jacket or cargo pants or something. I remember that Christmas walking around the mall pretending I was talking on the phone. Most likely in an attempt to impress girls which was as successful as all my other previous attempts to impress girls in that it did not work at all.  However, I still was not allowed to make any calls on it, even to try and impress random girls at the mall.

 I came to Christ in 1998. I was still considered a youth (albeit an older one) and I can remember going on youth trips and on the way back home we would hit the person county line and DDC would pass around his cell phone and tell everyone to call their parents to make sure they had a ride waiting for them when we got back to the church in the next 10 minutes or so. This was in stark contrast to the youth camp I helped chaperone in 2006 in which Cell Phones were a serious issue and interfered frequently with everything we tried to do, it was the first year that had ever been an issue.

I got my first cell phone in 2004. I was living with my buddy Shea and his family. Our mutual friend Surge (who stayed with us on the weekends) showed up one Friday evening handing me a new cell phone in the box and said "Here. I'm tired of not being able to get in touch with you guys. You owe me $10 a month for it." Which still remains the best cell phone plan I've ever had. This is pre-texting mind you. This cell phone could make calls, had a calculator, and you could play a blackjack game with very rudimentary graphics.I've carried a cell phone ever since.

Me and Lindsey did not get personal smart phones until 2010 (I had a blackberry at work from 2005-2010) after seeing all the neat things Droid could do. This all thanks once again to Surge.

It was so weird going about my daily duties with out one. I use it heavily at work testing Wifi, working on IP cameras, printers, etc. So I could notice it a lot then having to use my laptop instances where I had grown accustomed to using my phone. As I was running errands on lunch (post office, bank, etc.) while waiting in lines I kept reaching for my phone to kill time during the 3 minutes or so I had to wait at these places.

I think cell phones are so popular because they feel 2 contradictory needs at once. Our need for connection/communication and our need for distance/solitude. You can simultaneously be in contact with and isolated from the entire world. This desire transcends race, color, creed, religion and nationality. I've seen this behavior all over America, China, South Korea and the Philippines.It says a lot about us that most of our inventions end up getting used this way (Books, Radio, TV, Computers, etc.).

Ultimately we are desiring that connection with God, with Christ. Yet, we also want to remain isolated from Him due to what we know or fear He will ask of us. Something to consider the next time you reach for your cell phone.

Jeremiah 33:3 "‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’"

Glen