Look Up!

This week’s dragon-mom controversy revolved around writer Janell Burley Hofmann, who used the Huffington Post to share the contract that she made with her 13-year-old son when she gave him an iPhone for Christmas.

My first instinct would be to ask, why does a 13-year-old get an iPhone? I myself just got my first smartphone (if you want to know, it’s a Droid Razor M). But I’m not about to quibble with parental discretion, especially when the gift came with a very thoughtful and accessible eighteen-point contract.

The author frames the rules by saying, “[I] hope that you understand it is my job to raise you into a well rounded, healthy young man that can function in the world and coexist with technology, not be ruled by it.” This is a worthwhile goal and one that most parents find mysterious and challenging: how to raise our children to be mensches in a world changing faster than we can comprehend, much less control.

What I appreciate about the contract, especially now as I’m getting sucked into trying out new apps and checking my email everywhere I go, is that these are words to the wise for adults as well. While the controversy is swirling around the peremptory nature of addressing children via a contract, I’m persuaded that the author intended it as the opening of a conversation, not as stone tablets handed down at Sinai. It’s a conversation we should all be having.

I did not plan to own a smartphone until sometime in the next decade. But when my six-year-old back-up cellphone died, I had few options. For the first two weeks, I treated it like a phone. Calls, texts. Then I began checking my email. Then I discovered a few apps to help me locate important websites: NPR, The New York Times, online whitepages, Facebook…. Soon, the apps became more entertaining. Someone put “Angry Birds: Star Wars Edition” on my phone and I couldn’t put it down for over an hour.

It is so easy for adults to be seduced into this bottomless pit of information, entertainment and trivia. Have a question? Ask the phone. I am in danger of becoming the person I dreaded when I avoided buying this portable computer in the first place, someone interacting with a small screen rather than engaging with the world around me.

Photo by Steve Garfield from Flickr

This same week, I found a wonderful feature in the Boston Globe (which I read in print form) called “Lift Up Your Eyes.”

The author, Jan Brogan, was urged by Jack Borden, fan of watching clouds, environmental advocate and creator of the website http://www.forspaciousskies.com/ to look up at the sky every day as often as possible for twenty-one days. The experience that Brogan describes is a kind of spiritual practice. (my words, not his) On days 19-21, she writes, “It seems amazingly self-centered to have so narrowly focused my visual field until now that I did not bother to notice the medium I lived in.”  In other words, noticing the sky can be an opportunity for mindful awareness.

The article reminded me of a Hasidic tale that I love:

One day a Rabbi gazed through the window of his study which looked out upon the marketplace. People were hurrying to and fro, each attending to his or her own particular business. Suddenly the Rabbi saw a familiar face.

“Hikel!" he called. "Come in, I want to speak with you."
"Shalom, Rabbi, how are you?"
"Thank God, I am fine. Tell me, Hikel, what were you doing in the marketplace?"
"Oh, I'm very busy today. I have a lot of business to take care of."
"Hikel, asked the Rabbi, "Have you looked up at the sky today?"
"At the sky, Rabbi? No, of course not. I'm too busy to look at the sky."
"Hikel, look out the window and tell me what you see."
"I see people and horses and carriages, all rushing around doing business."
"Hikel, the Rabbi said, "in fifty years there will be other people in other carriages, drawn by other horses, and we will not be here. And Hikel, in a hundred years, neither the marketplace nor this town will even exist. Look at the sky, Hikel look at the sky!"

Looking at the sky, I am reminded of the importance of balancing my attention between the world at my fingertips and the world of eternity. Not so surprisingly, Janell Burley Hofmann made this same point in her words to her son:

"Keep your eyes up. See the world happening around you. Stare out a window. Listen to the birds. Take a walk. Talk to a stranger. Wonder without googling."

I think I’ll stop staring at my screen for a few minutes now.