The limitations of self-absorption

Among the effects is the decay of the art of conversation.  You can be reminded of this on busy 34th Street, when people are so absorbed "twittering" that they bump into you.  One cartoon has figures of a bride and groom on top of a wedding cake, each fingering a smartphone, and another shows a crowd of people tweeting with one hand while holding in the other the sort of white cane that blind people use.  Self-absorption is a form of moral blindness.  Most poignant is the cartoon of a lonely little boy holding a soccer ball, totally ignored by other children staring at their smartphones.

The moral problem is antecedent to the computer age: "To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another, and they say, 'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep'" (Luke 7:31-32).

Our Lord made those remarks in the context of criticisms against him, citing the fickleness of his accusers who resented the way he exposed the limitations of their self-absorption.  For others without the audacity to challenge him, it was sufficient to ignore him.  An ancient lament was a prophecy of Christ's timeless reproach to those too preoccupied with themselves to pay him attention as he hung on the Cross, whether in the first century or in the computer age: "Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?  Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow . . ." (Lamentations 1:12).

But for those who stay alert and look beyond themselves, September 14 celebrates the Triumph of the Cross.  In the eighth century, a boy in Syria was born mute and only found his voice the day he received Holy Communion at the age of seven.  He apparently loved to sing from then on, and Saint Andrew of Crete now is known as a hymnographer, as well as bishop and theologian.  He explained why the Cross takes us out of ourselves:

"Had there been no cross, Christ could not have been crucified.  Had there been no cross, life itself could not have been nailed to the tree.  And if life had not been nailed to it, there would be no streams of immortality pouring from Christ's side, blood and water for the world's cleansing.  The legal bond of our sin would not be cancelled, we should not have attained our freedom, we should not have enjoyed the fruit of the tree of life, and the gates of paradise would not stand open.  Had there been no cross, death would not have been trodden underfoot, nor hell despoiled."