Shining the Light

I have a love/hate relationship with much of today's technology.  In particular I have a love/hate relationship with the cell phone.  I'm not even sure the term cell phone is the correct term to use because the devices we call our phones are used for so many different things other than voice phone calls.  

Two of the most common non cell phone uses are text messaging and picture taking.  We also use the phone to check e-mails, look at web sites, stream television content, play video games and keep our calendars.  I've only scratched the surface of what our phones can do.  There's probably an app that can cook an omelet.

Cell phones are powerful devices as well.  According to Real Clear Science an i-phone has 100,000 times more computing power than the Apollo 11 spacecraft which first landed humankind on the moon. 

I will admit that on the one hand I appreciate the device I use.  It has certainly provided me with a multitude of conveniences otherwise unavailable.  I could enumerate the countless conveniences my phone affords but I suspect they are little different from the conveniences of anyone reading these words.

Yet, as I have mentioned there is a negative aspect to the role the phone plays in our lives.  I have found the phone to also be very intrusive.  I have often observed folks focused so totally on their phones that they ignore the living breathing human beings around them.

Prior to the shutdown of the University due to corona pandemic, I drove through the University of Georgia campus one day while classes were in session. Hundreds of students were scurrying about.  Many if not most of those students were paying little attention to their fellow students but rather had their noses stuck in their phones.  

While it is more prevalent among the young, all generations are sliding into this abyss. I notice that more and more people are not engaging those around them but are instead opting for the screen in front of them.  In the end, even with all the connectivity available to us we've become more disconnected from each other.  

Even with the negative things the cell phone has brought into our lives, the past few weeks have shown us their importance and in particular the importance of the cell phone camera.  Had their been no video taken of the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, there probably would have been no prosecution of those who carried out the shooting .  Without a video of the George Floyd death, there would have been little evidence to support further investigation of the incident.

In these cases the cell phone has shined a light where a light was needed.  It has revealed what needed to be revealed.  It brings to mind something taught by Jesus. Jesus said, "For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”  (John 3:20-21 NRSV)

While both the Arbery and Floyd cases must still be adjudicated the fact remains that transparency and light remain the enemies of evil.  One of the great properties of light is that it reveals to us what needs to be made known. 

The question that we are all left to ask is what would be revealed when the light is shined on each of us.? Are there moments in our lives when we would not want the phone to record what have done for all to see.  

May we be among those "who do what it is true...so that it may be clearly seen that [our] deeds have been done in God."