Ring, Ding, Buzz or Song
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Authors
Gillick, Larry, S.J.
Issue Date
2016-01-19
Volume
Issue
Type
Text
Language
en_US
Keywords
Glimpses by Fr. Gillick
Alternative Title
Abstract
I am pretty up there in years I guess, because I remember using a phone that had a little crank-ringer on its side to get the operator's attention. Then I would give her the number I wanted her to plug me into. She might have a friendly comment to me while making the connection. We were on a "party-line" with, of course, other parties. Two longs and a short was our phone line, other combinations belonged to other parties and one party could have a little party by partying-in on other party's calls. This was before TV and actually more interesting.|I have advanced to a flip-top cell phone which I use only in airports. It takes pictures, but I haven't learned how to do that yet. Our students, upon leaving class, before putting on hats or gloves, even jackets, check their what-evers for important personal messages. They text, twitter, Facebook, space look, aka skyping, iPad and even talk to each other using real words. I was visiting a home with two parents and four growing "tec-kids". While sitting in the kitchen I experienced a new form of surround-sound. Each person had an individual device for being contacted and each had a separate ring or song or melody. Each also had different sounds depending upon who was doing the contacting. I am not kidding at times it sounded like an old-time clock shop at noon. If the recipient of the call "Is not here right now", a message can be deposited to be listened to later.|The issue is that the contactor has to know through what device is the contactee, contactable. The other big issue is that to the degree of affection I experience in the relationship with the person I am contacting, to that degree I will want to be where the other is. In short, love wants to be where exactly the beloved is present and the lover wants to communicate in the most available and desirable manner of the beloved. We rather casually ask persons "How are you today." Their response will reveal to them and to you the degree of relationship or intimacy they feel. Very close friends answer more slowly, reflectively, and more honestly. They tell the truth to the extent that they are aware of the self-truth.|I have a close friend who had a knee replacement recently. When I call her the first thing I want to know is about her pain, because that is where her self- awareness is centered and that's where I want to meet her. Friends do such reverential things. With all the advancements in communication technology, maybe there will be a "self phone" into which you electrically send yourself into the "corposphere" and zipididoo my whole body and soul shows up, if of course the recipient is available and has the correct receiver. If not, I would get a "busy- body" message and return myself to the sender, me.|The Infinite God had this same kind of idea long before my finite thought. Love, always respectful of boundaries, desires to be where the beloveds are. We have to know where we are and humbly admit it. God is more present to us than we are to ourselves. Prayer begins then with our asking the very intimate and self- reverencing question asked by any loving friend, "How are you, where are you?" We will easily know whether or not we want to be met, found, accompanied by how reverently or irreverently we respond. Truth loves truth, but often we do not like our truth and so avoid being found, met or accompanied. We just want to be left alone to figure ourselves out.|The Jesus of Holy Scriptures, through His Incarnation, came through the "corposphere" and Body and Soul embraced the human condition bodies and souls. He loves us the way He finds us and we find ourselves being found. We have the correct devices we just have to be available to ourselves and His being already present there. It is only a glimpse, to be honest.
Description
Citation
Publisher
Creighton University, Online Ministries