My phone died. And my new phone is at this very moment Fed-Exing its way to my front door.

The BlackBerry is dead! Long live the Droid! The reign of the phone shall go uninterrupted.

I liked my old phone. And I liked the one before that. Our relationships were short, but intense. I’m ready already for something new. My last phone was named BB for short, or BlackBeast on certain days. I’m thinking Droiders will be a nice name for my new friend, but I’m open to suggestions.

I’m open to the new in general. At least I’ve preached plenty of sermons on that theme over the years. I figure the Spirit always is blowing us toward the new and the untried, out of our Egypts and toward the Promised Land, pushing us pilgrims toward a New Heaven and a New Earth. I’m just not so sure what part these phones play on the journey, and I’ve become troubled about it lately.

I’ve just returned from a series of meetings and gatherings across the country. I’ve been in board meetings, receptions, one-on-one conversations, supper talks, church gatherings, and even a graduation and a couple of parties. And of course, there’s all the travel time in between these gatherings. Everywhere I’ve been, people have been talking. Sometimes, in some places, they’ve been talking to the person they can see in the room. Sometimes, in some places, they are also listening. But all the time, in every place, people are talking to somebody who’s not there. They are talking, texting, messaging and emailing somebody someplace else. They are communicating with their fingers, letting their fingers do the talking, as it were. In most cases, they are doing what we used to call “multi-tasking”—two things at once, e.g. listening while texting, talking while clicking. We used to call it multi-tasking because we didn’t do it all the time. We often did one thing at a time. But I think that multi-tasking, in communication, is the new tasking, like have several screens open at once on the computer. Now, we have several communication lines coming and going from our ears and eyes and mouths and fingers. We are becoming something new. I’m not sure it’s a good thing.

I’m not sure it’s a good thing because I’ve noticed something missing lately in the meetings I’ve attended. I miss the people: their voices, their eyes, their ears, and all the rest of them.

For starters, I miss their hello.  For example, in one city this past month, in one meeting, I entered one room, a place I’d never been. A handful of folks had arrived before me. They were seated at the table. They looked up, and they said hello but their eyes never met mine, because they never really left their screens. No small talk about the weather or the traffic or the Dodgers or the World Cup or the kids being home from school. No small talk at all. I settled into my chair and clicked away also. So when it came time for the big talk, we hadn’t established the most minimal of human connections. With all of our connectivity, we had no human connections. I don’t mean to over-dramatize this, but I am wondering what’s happening to us all.

And of course, I noticed in my travels this past month that thing we all notice and that thing we all do. When the conversation slips to the other side of the table, or when the afternoon stretches on, we reach down and click in. We click in and tune out. Or rather we do two things at once. We sit in one place and attend to another. We leave the people in front of us and watch them leave us. (I’m thinking my antidote for this might be something like the nicotine breaks that used to characterize meetings: every 45 minutes we can reach down for our fix, but meanwhile, all hands and eyes and ears and hearts on deck.)

And meanwhile, the very important work that calls us together in the first place, work that asks everything of us, goes wanting. We ponder the lack of civility in public discourse, but we are half-tuned-into the discourse at the table. You may not care about meeting me at the table, but I believe you care about the issue that brought us together. If we can’t focus on each other for 45 minutes, how can we address the big deals?  Whether we are talking about oil spills or budget woes, we are all in this together, and I figure we need to bring all of our wits to the table if we are to come up with any creative solutions.

I am not talking about manners here, although someone probably should. I’m talking about our ability to attend, to do what all the spiritual masters from Benedict to Thich Nhat Hanh have suggested: be present to the moment, be here now. I’m talking about our ability to do what Jesus suggested when he told us that heaven is “at hand.” Right here, right now, in the lilies of the field, the mustard seen, the person next to you. “Being here” is an ancient spiritual practice—an old school way to focus. Maybe, with all that is new, it’s time to do something old.