The strange message left me squinting into the middle-distance in abject confusion. I had just emailed a friend to ask if she was still able to meet me that evening. ‘I’m meditating right now :),’ her reply said. And it was crowned with the addendum: ‘Sent from my iPhone.’
After a few disorientated seconds spent trying to process this bizarre sophism, I finally decided to be outraged. Why on earth had she taken her iPhone into a ‘meditation’ session? How was I supposed to know not to email her because she might be ‘meditating’ with a twitching mobile at the edge of her crossed knees? The more I thought about it the crosser I became. I drafted several retorts, one of which particularly pleased me: ‘Wow! Well done for meditating while also sending an email. Have you alerted the international Sivananda centre to inform them of this breakthrough in meditative techniques?’
I also thought about how great spiritual moments in history might be transformed by the addition of remote communications technology. ‘Can’t talk now, burning a bush. God…Sent from my BlackBerry.’
‘Just getting some tablets of stone in. C u at the sea-parting. Moses…Sent from my iPhone.’
‘In middle of nowhere. Not enuff loaves ’n fishes 2 go round!! This could get heavy. JC…Sent from my iPad.’
But I didn’t send a sarcastic reply, thank goodness. Because later on, when I met up with my friend and remarked on her rather unconventional approach to inner contemplation, she burst out laughing. ‘Darlink!’ she said in her glamorous Peruvian accent, as she enveloped me in a Chanel-scented embrace. ‘You’re a craaaazy woman! How could I be meditating if I was answering my phone? It was a joke. Don’t you get it?’
I had to confess that I did now, four hours later, get it.
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