If you have a decent Christian bone in your body, boys, please help PeaceBang rid the world of CELL PHONE AND BEEPERS CLIPPED ON PANTS.
This is an evil of our time that must be overcome!! Things are getting completely out of hand.
I recently sang a concert with a lovely tenor who had THREE ELECTRONIC DEVICES CLIPPED TO HIS TROUSERS. I tried in vain to get him to remove them, dear readers. I did. I begged. I cajoled. I threatened physical violence. That silly man, he thought I was kidding. And every time I glanced over at him, I saw not his effervescent self but his ELECTRONIC DEVICES.
I ask you, what more effective way than clipping electronic devices to your belt to say to those around you, “I am an EXTREMELY IMPORTANT PERSON. I could be DESPERATELY NEEDED ANY MOMENT NOW. Whatever we are doing here together, I am completely willing to have it INTERRUPTED by the mad buzzing, ringing, clanging or blaring of not just one, but several of these ELECTRONIC DEVICES that I have actually ATTACHED TO MY PERSON.”
I tell you, it made PeaceBang practically ground her bicuspids into a fine powder that afternoon, so tempted was she to grab every one of those bloody devices and throw them across the room and out of sight.
With the immortal Don Quixote as my inspiration in this quest, I dream this impossible dream… to rid the world of Cell Phone Pants Clips. Friends, ARE YOU WITH ME?
Are pagers on a belt okay if we really ARE on call for disasters and getting paged? (Chaplain looks humble in her beat-up danksos). I never wear them when off call, but (being deaf, especially!) I have all my pagers (four, sometimes!) set to vibrate and clipped on my person. I sleep with them on when I’m on call.
Off duty, though, I leave them home, go pager free, and search my closet for the cute shoes. Hopefully that earns me PeaceBang Points.
Michael (the DH) wears his cell phone clipped inside his pants pocket. It’s barely noticeable. Is that acceptable?
Too many accessories on your belt make it appear that your mother does not trust you enough to be out by yourself.
Ah, I remember CPE on call with only three beepers. One looked large enough to be used by the SETI Project.
Sometimes, they would all buzz at once. Pastorally, a difficult situation but a great way to tone the abdominals.
But I don’t want to dig in my purse looking for my phone while it is singing the Bossa Nova during the choir anthem. If it’s on my belt it is super accessable!
I’ve discovered these newfangled things called pockets. I put my cell phone in there and it never falls off, breaks or gets lost like it does when I clip it to my pants. Plus I don’t have to look so goofy.
I clutch my heart, God Guuurrll! No! Call the Fashion Exorcist! Darling,no one is so important that she can’t turn her phone to “silent” and leave it in her bag, checking it on occasion to see if calls have come in. “Super-accessible” does not excuse us from this heinous fashion crime. Repent! Go and sin no more!
@HS: Inside the pants pocket, hey, fine. Perhaps a handsome ManBag would be a nice wedding gift for the DH?
@RevBee: FOUR? Cripes, that’s a lot! If you’re on call, yes. But not if you’re singing in a concert. Not if you’re presiding at worship. In those cases, leave them with a friend who can discreetly signal you that there’s been a life-crisis and you can speed out like Superman. But isn’t there another option, like clipping them to a bag? Even when we’re on call, it worries me that we’re setting our very bodies to buzz and alarm, heightening our sense of anxiety and expectations for insanely-fast response time.
I once dated a boy who wore his cell phone on his hip. He even had an old-school, extra-large phone, encased in a beat-up leather-and-vinyl wrapper. He was a very nice boy, but seriously? I am refraining from using the word “equipment” so close to “hip,” but it’s not the electronic kind that I want to see.
Perhaps we should read this post in conjuction with the one on man bags. A phone clipped to the inside of your pocket still produces unsightly protrusions and makes your pants hang badly.
For me this begs the question: why must we be always readily accesible? When leading worship, singing with a choir, comforting the afflicted, operating a motor vehicle, or, yes, simply enjoying some God-ordained sabbath time, why must the phone be in easy reach?
Even when you are on call, for heaven’s sake, pull over! Or call right back!
I’m not that old, but I remember a time when the telephone stayed in one place. It didn’t follow you around with its insistent ringing, whining, vibrating calls for your attention. People called and if you weren’t there they left a message and you got back to them and it was all okay.
The thought that we would strap the telephone to our bodies and leave the house so adorned would have been laughable. And still is! Thanks, PB!
Now… what about watches? I think strapping a clock to your body is also kind of weird…
Peacebang, you’re very fortunate that you do not have a job in emergency response. That’s all I can say. Try finding a lovely bag that allows you to keep an 800 mHz radio easily accessible at all times.
I don’t mind if it’s an actual pager, because then the person must be on call or something, but the cell phone attached to belt–ridiculous. And especially ridiculous if the person walks around with the ear phones attached so as to talk to imaginary friends all the time.
The pageers were often a challenge for me in working on call as a hospital chaplain. I hated them digging into my waist, and if I forgot and wore a DRESS–I had to carry them around in my hand. Irritating.
I once knew a preacher (a long time ago) who carried a cell phone, discreetly, under his robe. Silenced. During worship.
At a Good Friday service, the clergy exited the sanctuary during the final hymn. (unusual, I know, but it happened) And, outside in the hall the cell phone vibrated.
Well, he was outside worship, and he had the fleeting thought that his teenage son might be in some trouble, so he answered.
Sadly, he had forgotten to turn off his microphone. So, over the loudspeaker, during the solemnest moment of the Tennebrae Service, comes the voice
“Chris? Chris?
NO.
Wrong number. You have the wrong number!”
The organist stops playing, believing that he is being scolded for playing the wrong hymn.
Then, having checked the bulletin, he resumes. But, any chance that the congregation will carry out into the night an “experience of the Holy” is far, far gone.
A sad story. But, if you get far enough away from it, kinda funny, too.
i agree they can be annoying but the clipped on blackberry allows my dear husband to go to the zoo to the movies and to the childrens museum with our family so i am not complaining
this isn”t because of some exaggerated sense of importance but but because of the demands of his job and i cannot remember a time when his use of it was rude or annoying to anyone
My male minister friend has a combo cell phone & PDA which is kinda bulky. It looks *much* better clipped to his belt than it does in his pocket, especially since he generally wears flat-front slacks rather than pleats (as PB recommends!)
He already has a manbag – it weighs a ton because it’s full of his 17″ laptop, two computer batteries, an adapter, several notebooks, pens, his Internet phone, his “Getting Things Done” book, and whatever other little trinkets he deems necessary. I have to beg him to leave that thing behind when we go to the GROCERY STORE, otherwise he’d take it everywhere.
Sorry, no can do a bag. I already have to wear a white lab coat, so I have BIIIIG pockets. I did once know a chaplain intern who carried a bag with bible, prayer book, baptizing shell, and kitchen sink. She garnered the unfortunate nickname ‘Angel of Death’. (Note to chaplains: avoid long black nun-like dresses on night shifts.) Unfortunately, I miss the vibrating in my pocket, so I gotta keep the unfortunate suckers clipped to myself. I do at least try and wear belts, since if I don’t have a belt, the waist band droops and droopy waistbands risk immodesty. No one needs to see the chaplain’s undies, thank you. Lesser of the two evils, perhaps?
On the bright side, I have a minymo from Bulge too- the company was REALLY great with customer service. I don’t know if a man could really pull that off…
OH NO! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO!!??
PeaceBang is at a loss, my dears.
I guess we can just settle for banishing clipped phones AS FREQUENTLY AS POSSIBLE.
I can’t help but think that we’ve become very addicted to these gadgets when years ago people did just fine without them.
Back in the day people were chained to their desks, working late into the night, because they didn’t have the gagetry. People had to leave early from vacations instead of spending half a day here and there on the computer after getting an important call.
Not that everyone uses them appropriately, beace bang, but “fine” is relative if you’re the one at home with preschool kids while dad has to work until 9. Frankly, I’ve made peace with the blackberry.
Sorry to take the last word there, but I sort of have some energy around this topic (don’t you think?)
Sorry for mispelling you pseudonymn, too.
Off the top of my head, I can think of one friend who doesn’t own a cell phone. It’s definitely possible to live without one. But a generation or two ago, lots of things were different. People just don’t seem to be existing in the same, small spaces that they generally used to. My one friend who doesn’t have a cell phone lives a life of serious routine. His friends pretty much know where he is 90% of the time, and we are few in number.
Maybe cell phones don’t improve the quality of our lives (perhaps they even make them worse?), but they are a sign of our times. We’d have to return to lives that were more predictable, less prone to relocation, and in close proximity to our friends and family.
I think this is really an issue of boundaries as well as fashion. Outside of being on-call at a hospital, most of us are really just addicted to “being needed” and “available”…
Anyone preaching or leading worship with their phone near them needs to take a big breath and step back for a moment. Availability doesn’t always mean “great pastor”.
Perhaps we as clergy are also called to model healthy use of today’s technology. Technology is weakening people’s community and relationships in many ways…I think the religious leadsers could offer other ways to live and use these modern “conveniences”.
I’d add this: I think the constant need for a pastor to have a cell phone is bad theology and bad ecclesiology.
I can’t believe how many have them clipped on at regional church meetings, and TAKE CALLS even during worship!
I understand completely if you’ve got a parishoner who is on death’s door, or your child who is sick, etc.
But, a pastor who must be completely available 24/7 is saying that the church cannot function without her.
Leave it to Jesus and the body of Christ sometimes, folks!!!
I don’t own a cell phone and never have. And I’m hardly a Luddite.
Then again, I’m usually either at home or work and the two are walking distance. (I don’t drive any more, so no need for a phone for breakdowns.)
Cell phones seem to bring out the worst — the most anger, self-absorption, mania; plus people describe their dependence in drug-like language — in people that I thought I had better learn to do without.
A loud AMEN to what Erica said. And as for digging in a bag during the choir anthem…TURN it OFF! Off, I say! Haruuumph!