We were at a gathering of about 30 people, and I was at the podium. I was about a minute into my opening devotion when a cell phone began to ring.

Cell phone embarrassment

After a couple rings, a man recognized it as his phone and immediately began to retrieve it. It continued to sound its piercing tone as he tried to turn it off. I paused briefly; we all waited; I tried to continue. There was a lot of snickering and more than a few witty comments.

Finally the phone stopped ringing, and its owner assured everyone that he had turned it off. More than a little embarrassed, he apologized for the interruption but seemed satisfied that it wouldn’t happen again. Ah, but soon it was ringing again ever so loudly! And again! Then followed the ring that alerts its proud owner that he has a message waiting.

By this time, the person next to him was giving him that “look.” You see, the person whose phone was now out of control had, in the past, chided his friend for allowing this kind of thing to happen. The annoyance of the ringing cell phone happened often to his friend, but now it was happening to him. This one who admittedly had been critical of the cell-phone etiquette of others was now the offender!

After the devotion was over and we had concluded with prayer, the man apologized again and again for the disruption. Of course, we were all among friends, and no one was in the least bit upset. Yet he continued to say he was sorry, even e-mailing me later to express his contrition one more time. I suspect that what troubled him the most was the fact that what he previously found unacceptable in others had now happened to him.

We’ve all been there and done that

I’d like to believe that what happened in that conference room is one of those “teachable moments.”

With human nature being what it is, all of us have a tendency to be somewhat critical of other people, especially if they think or act differently than we do. Like it or not, we often pre-judge folks and form opinions based upon limited information or information that is either skewed or outright erroneous. We wonder how a person could think this way or act that way. We have no sympathy toward those who make a mess of things because they “should have known better.”