Look Up, Not Down pt. 2
Nature abhors a vacuum...
Now that you have some context for how I’m engaging in Lent this year (and hopefully any other time I decide to participate in Lent), I want to share more about what I’m actually doing this year.
I shared briefly in the last post about having two main things I’m doing this year, fasting from my phone, and creating an intentional practice of being outside and looking at the sky. Both of these ideas came to me in the span of a few hours only a few days before Ash Wednesday. If you’re like me, one of these things feels obvious, and the other might feel like a head scratcher.
Giving up my phone, or at least fasting from the vast majority of the “smart” functions of my extremely smart phone, has been something I’ve been seriously considering for well over a year. I’ve had subtle inklings to all out cosmic signs from God all pointing to the fact that the relationship I’ve cultivated with this particular screen is causing more harm than good. At first I thought the issue was just social media, which is certainly a big part of it, but there’s more to it than just the detrimental effects of algorithmic social media (which I’ll be writing about more extensively in a future post).
Sure, I could pick up my phone and check instagram, but I could also check my email, or the weather, or look at a map, or find out what song is playing in the coffee shop, or check my bank account, or text a friend. It’s been alarming to see how much of my life is filtered through this five inch screen. This device has created a dependence that I’m actually very uncomfortable with, but more than the dependence, it’s the impulsivity that it cultivates that is the bigger problem.
If everything in my world is filtered through my phone, I don’t need to plan, I don’t need to think, I don’t need to wait. I can have everything I want the moment I want it, essentially putting the hedonic treadmill in overdrive. If I want to listen to my favorite artist’s new album, I don’t have to wait to pick it up at the record store, it’s immediately available on Spotify the second it’s released. If I even think that I need some household item, I can pull out my phone and in a matter of clicks Amazon is already halfway to my house with it. This speed and impulsivity gives me no time to think, no time to wait, no time to anticipate. It’s everything RIGHT NOW.
This tiny piece of metal and glass provides constant stimulation. My eye is drawn to it even when I’m not using it. My hand reaches for it unconsciously the moment any question pops into my head, removing the need for me to think and the space for me to ponder. This constant stimulation also means I never have to feel the discomfort of being bored, which means my mind never really gets a break, it’s almost always in consumption mode. And I know I’m not the only one.
Phone use has been linked to increased anxiety, depression, insomnia and a slew of other maladies. Don’t even get me started on the disastrous effects of phone use on our posture! With all of these negative consequences it’s a surprise we don’t all chuck our cell phones into the nearest body of water! But the thing that complicates all this is the fact that cell phones and smart phones despite all the negativity also bring a lot of good things into our lives. So, if we can’t get rid of it all together, we have to find the right place for them in our lives. That’s what I’m trying to do with this phone fast.
I’m hoping to spend the next 40 days putting my phone in it’s place. Giving myself the space and time to feel bored, allow myself to ponder questions before looking them up, and using my phone to intentionally create the connection I want in my life, not allowing it to dominant my day to day life.
But, as I’m sure you’ve heard, Nature abhors a vacuum. So if I’m not constantly looking at my phone, where am I looking? This is where the second part of my Lenten intention comes into play.
In his book Speak to the Earth and It will Teach You, David Cooperrider takes a naturalists approach to the Bible, encouraging readers to “love God through loving the world.” It’s truly a beautiful book and I highly recommend it to anyone who grew up in the church or has a christian/biblical background. In his section on Clouds, Cooperrider tells the story of a journalist who cultivated an intentional practice of looking at the sky for 21 days. Her transformation is powerful as she shifts from someone who never gave much thought to what was right above her heard to someone who has a daily religious experience just looking up.
As I read how she learned to interpret the days clouds to predict the weather, and the beauty she was able to cultivate in her life through this practice, I knew it had to be the second part of this Lenten journey.
As a high-schooler looking at the sky was a surprisingly regular practice for me. I grew up in a small town in the midwest and there was basically nothing to do but get in trouble or look at the sky. Because of my religious upbringing, I tended toward the latter. I would leave my house hours before school started to drive out to my favorite spots to watch the sunrise. After school my friends and I would head to the same spots to watch the stars as many evenings as we could, staying out as late as our parents would allow.
Those western-Kansas skies provided the backdrop to almost all of the most poignant spiritual experiences of my young life. Even after I had a spiritual reckoning with my church and faith, the sky always seemed to provide a sense of connectedness and divinity that transcended my ideas about God, faith, and the church. So, despite the fact I never really considered my jaunts out on to country roads to be a practice per se, when I read about someone else using looking at the sky as a spiritual practice, I resonated with the concept on a deep level.
As I sat with the two ideas together, I was struck by a beautiful symmetry. Not only was I not looking down at my phone, the intention was to also cultivate a practice of looking up. Yogicly speaking, it is in alignment with how we work through difficult samskaras or patterns we’ve developed. We don’t simply refrain from doing what we’ve been stuck doing, we add the opposite. By doing so, we’re actually brining the teeter-totter of our lives back into balance.
As I lift my head up from my phone, I can actually stretch and look up. As I disengage from the things that’s making me feel isolated and alone, I can intentionally engage with what reminds me of my inherent connection. As I tune out from what is small and frantic, I can tune into was is immense and steady. These are the shifts I want to make in my life over the next 40 days (well, 37 now).
If you’ve resonated with anything I’ve written, I’d love to hear about it! You can drop a comment below or get in contact with me through my website. I appreciate you all coming along for this wild ride!
I highly recommend the movie Perfect Days. It’s a meditative Japanese film about a man with a simple but full life, who takes joy in looking up at the trees and photographing them on his lunch break.