Let Me Hear Your Voice

I have learned over the past couple of years that if I want to reach my nieces and nephew quickly, there’s only one way to do it, and it’s not the way I’m used to, which is by telephone. That method no longer works. I have to text them.

The same goes for every other young adult I know. If I want a timely response—or, sometimes, any response at all—I have to tap out a message on my cell phone. This is problematic, because unlike the mobile phones of the people I’m texting to, my cell is not a smartphone. It’s an old model with a tiny keyboard that slides out to reveal itty-bitty keys. I routinely hit two keys at once, and then I have to backtrack, delete and retype. A minute or so of this and I’m ready to heave the phone out the window.

One day last year I needed to move some heavy boxes. I called my nephew, Stephen, a college student who is agile and strong, and left a voicemail message asking him for help. He didn’t call back. I waited a few days, and then I did what I should have done in the first place. I texted him. He was studying in the college library, but I had a return text in less than two minutes.

He did the heavy lifting. I figured I had done my part just by tapping those tiny keys.

It’s not that I am averse to technology, though I’ll admit that I was a bit suspicious of it until I realized how it could transform everyday tasks. When I joined Catholic New York at its founding in 1981, we reporters wrote our stories on typewriters. Within a couple of years, computers came into our newsroom. I was not enthusiastic; in fact, I was the last CNY reporter to work only on a typewriter. In those days, when we had to add a paragraph to a story, we literally cut and pasted it. Today, “cut-and-paste” is a digital command that’s done in seconds. I love my computer. And I’m going to replace my outdated cell with a smartphone.

But technology has its limits and its disadvantages. What I dislike most about texting is that it removes the human voice, even when the message could be spoken in a fraction of the time it takes to type it. The sound of someone’s voice conveys so much, and all of that is lost when the message is digital. Texting puts people farther apart and makes communication less personal. Emoticons aren’t a substitute.

I don’t mean to denigrate forms of communication that do not involve the sound of the human voice. I have loved the written word passionately since childhood, and I love my work as a writer. I love to read. I love words when they are used in art, whether fine art or everyday objects like mugs, posters and even the comics page.

But when it comes to communication between two people, the voice can say things that words on a screen cannot.

I’ll even argue that God is on my side. When he wanted to communicate most fully with human beings, he took their nature and spoke with a human voice—his human voice. We cherish and repeat the words he spoke, and in that sense, we still hear him.

If Jesus were here today, would he use a mobile phone? Would he text? I’m sure he would, but I also think that if he were behind schedule, he wouldn’t tap out, “Cn u b thr @ 5 not 4? C u l8r.” I think he’d call and say, “I’m running late, but I want to get together with you. Can we make it at 5 instead of 4? OK, great. I look forward to seeing you.”

Texting is useful and efficient and often good. Talking is better. When you can, let me hear your voice.