Smartphones at the Grand Canyon

It can be easy to look at the problems in others and forget to see the ones in ourselves.

I was thinking about Steven Curtis Chapman last week at the southern rim of the Grand Canyon. Twenty years ago, Chapman, a Christian recording artist, released a song called, “Wake Up and See the Glory.” Here’s the part I was thinking about:

I'm playing Game Boy standing in the middle of the Grand Canyon
I'm eating candy sittin' at a gourmet feast
I'm wading in a puddle when I could be swimming in the ocean
Tell me what's the deal with me
Wake up and see the glory

Chapman’s title clearly riffs on the old phrase, “wake up and smell the coffee.” This phrase calls folks to become aware of reality. Chapman takes this phrase and calls himself to wake up the glory of God rather than settling for lesser glories. The song in this way channels this well-known C.S. Lewis quote:

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Here’s why I thought of this Steven Curtis Chapman song. I stood at the rim of the Grand Canyon just after sunset. A family of four sat near me, and every one of them was looking at their smartphone. A four-inch screen captivated them in that moment, rather than the glory literally right in front of them. I heard Chapman’s familiar words refrain in my mind. Playing Game Boy standing in the middle of the Grand Canyon. “What a waste,” I thought. “They’re staring at their little glowing rectangles instead of at the most glorious natural beauty in our hemisphere. Wake up and see the glory, people!”

Maybe another set of words should have entered my mind then. “Thank you, Lord, that I’m not like this tax collector!” (Luke 18:11). We know how that story goes. The Pharisee who prayed those words wasn’t the good guy. Yes, I find our culture’s addiction to our magic rectangles concerning. But I should find my own addiction to my magic, glowing rectangle more concerning. What would neighborly love mean in that moment? It would be believing the best. Like, for all I know, that family had been sitting there for an hour or more, staring and soaking. Maybe when it started getting dark they decided to text friends some pictures. It would be taking the iPhone out of my eye first.

I made a conscious decision that day that I would not bring out my phone at the rim of the Grand Canyon unless I was taking a picture. But it had to be a conscious decision. Multiple times I was tempted to pull out my glowing, magic rectangle while standing in the middle of the Grand Canyon. For three hours I had not looked at my phone instead of the Grand Canyon. My sinful heart turned that into smug righteousness and concern about our culture.

Rewind seventeen years, to August, 2005. I was journeying from Northern California to Louisville, Kentucky to start my Master’s degree at Southern Seminary. Early in my travel, I pulled off I-40 and drove to Grand Canyon National Park. I saw the Canyon, but it somehow underwhelmed me. Since then, folks would talk about the Canyon taking their breath away, and I would smile and nod, yet cringe inside. I somehow hadn’t seen it. I have felt low-grade shame and guilt about that little moment for nearly two decades. Guilt says, “I did something wrong.” Shame says, “I am something wrong.” Shame whispered, “How could you miss it?” Guilt whispered, “How could you miss it?” Maybe I was too much in a hurry in my early 20s. I had a degree to start and a calling to pursue. Maybe I needed all the stuff—celebrating and suffering—to season me for nearly twenty years. Because this time I saw it, and I determined not to miss it for my magic glowing rectangle. Yet my silly, sinful heart tempted me to turn God’s grace into smug self-righteousness.

What’s the deal with me? Indeed.

What’s the point of this little cluster of stories? I think at least it reminds me that love is patient and kind. Those little pockets of shame and guilt weren’t much to deal with. I do, though, have much larger pouches of shame and guilt, and I need to turn them over to Jesus. It’s his Canyon, and he is patient with me. Seventeen years is a blink to him. He’s patient with those folks staring at their phones, too, even when I’m not. So I should be.

I need to wake up to the glory and to trust Jesus’s patient love when I miss it. I need to trust Jesus’s patient love for others when they miss it, while also gently rousing them, “Awake from the dead, Sleeping Friend, and Christ will shine on you.”

Both smugness and shame evaporate in his presence. Sometimes it takes seventeen years.