The Lord's Prayer Over an IPad

My iPad is not just a valuable and attractive item. It is a gift from my whole family. My husband, my mother, my sister, and my children and their spouses made this gift possible. What a nice and elegant piece of intellectual and material property my iPad is!

It makes me think of Steve Jobs, the Apple founder, who recently died. What a genius mind! Why didn’t Steve Jobs believe in charity? Jobs didn’t leave any money for a single ministry. He left all his billions to his family. It should be something in his decision. Charity comes from the heart.

I look at my iPad. It’s not a retina screen iPad. Nothing fancy. This is one of the earliest models. It could be great to upgrade my iPad with the latest, fastest, and lightest version of it. I slowed down, trying to imagine the new iPad. Immediately the splash of  memories showered me. I got my iPad from my family. What a surprise it was! I went to France right away with my iPAd, and, if not for iPad, I would come back without a single picture because my iPhone camera was off. I even tried to Skype from Paris with my husband. My iPad is my library, my banking, and my writing tool.  I Skype, FaceBook, Tweet, and do my blogging on my iPad. It is fast.  It helps me to look and apply for jobs. Would I be as efficient without it?

The view of my iPad reminded me of my parents’ overindulgence back in Russia. We always had the best toys and the best clothes. I’ve learned to appreciate good food and enjoy it. A Christian can be wealthy without falling into sin, and therewith to be able to do more good and to share out of her abundance.

The Lord’s Prayer crosses my mind, “Give us this day our daily bread…” Back in Russia we used to sing about being "masters of our boundless motherland." In actuality, we were humiliated little by little: standing in long lines at local stores with numbers written on our palms; purchasing butter, flour, and sausage with coupons. We were allowed to buy only 4 pounds of meat a year for every member of the family. But having a version of socialist social justice, people were packing their houses with whatever they could find in abundance: we all had equally little, and all got whatever else they could wherever they could, and if they could not, then the more foolish they were! The ironic jokes of a famous comedian were in vogue: "What I guard, I have. If I guard nothing, I have nothing!" Another saying was, "What belongs to everyone really belongs to no one."

Even now, in America, my mother gets panicky if she doesn’t have an extra supply of toothpaste or food out of fear that something might disappear from the shelves one day. But do I really need a newer iPad?

I was able to look at my iPad from eternity standpoint. “Give us this day our daily bread…” Definitely, bread vs. a newer and faster iPad. My granddad never cared for material things, but always shared with his neighbors his last shirt and even bread. Literally. He left this life in quiet poverty, never collecting anything for himself, but his memories that were robbed from him later by his illness. My Grandfather spent his last five years in the same room, on the same sofa, staring at the rough, whitewashed wall with almost nothing to eat. Luckily, he wrote a book that we treasure. These handwritten books are our best inheritance. It is more precious than my iPad. But are they even comparable? The iPad is replaceable, and my grandfather’s manuscripts are not.

I clearly sense that I do not want to finish my days like my grandfather, as much as I respect his solitude and ascetic life style.

“Forgive our trespasses…” My new iPhone 5 was stolen at work. I am trying not to feel angry. I am not angry. My customer stole my phone on Mother’s Day! It reminded me of my grandfather when our family leather-bound Russian Orthodox Bible was stolen from him. All he said was, “This man needed the Bible more than I.” He also said, “God gave, God took it away.”

All I have left to work with is my iPad that even helped to locate my stolen iPhone via “Find my iPhone” app. Police officer was able to see the address on the map where my iPhone ended.

I am angry. All my passwords are on the stolen new iPhone5! What if someone would empty my barren bank accounts? Besides, I had my iPhone 5 for less than two weeks. It was my husband’s early Mother’s Day gift to me! Do I even have an insurance on my phone?

I look at my iPad, and feel angry. How people could do such things? Poverty makes people do ugly things. My grandfather was a true Christian. He would always give away another set of my parents’ silver or china, and felt elated that he helped another family. My mother was agonizing over the loss, smiling at the same time. She couldn’t argue with my grandfather.

I used to like doing charity. I gratefully inherited this “curse” from my grandfather. I liked to give hope to people when they felt hopeless. I loved to make people happy. When I ended without a home and a job myself, I began looking differently at people in need. Charity takes human dignity away.

On another hand, my stolen iPhone is just money. Can I survive without a phone? But is it really just money? Oh, here it comes again. “Give us this day our daily bread…”

For six days I couldn’t tell my mother that my phone was stolen. She is way to anxious for the news like that! So I lied. But when I try to call her from work, she doesn’t pick up the phone because she does not recognize the number.  My mother does not speak English and does not hear well. Is she OK? I hope she didn’t fall. After calling her six times, I thought, I should drive and check on her. To have a phone is not a luxury, but a necessity for my “sandwich generation” that stretches itself so thin between parents, children, and grandchildren. Even homeless people nowadays have cell phones.

Forgiveness does not come easy. All family pictures and my little granddaughter’s pictures were on that phone. To think that someone is going through them takes my sleep away. “Thy will be done…” The more I look at my iPad, the more I want justice! God will do justice. I shouldn’t. Let me be poor, let me be rich…

No, poverty does not make you spiritual. This is my mantra.