I sent my very first text message, “I love you,” to the senior pastor at our church. He was amused. I had planned to send it to my wife but got things mixed up in the list of contacts.
My skill at texting has improved since then. I use text messages freely now. They’re more than simply passing notes in class, although they are that too. Texts are another way of sending a message to someone, easier than an e-mail and less intrusive than a phone call. There are times when a text suits the need perfectly. I never text while driving or while talking to someone — the one is dangerous, and the other is rude.
Many people my age are ambivalent about texting — it’s one more thing to learn how to do. They scoff at it or complain at how spelling habits have declined. For me, I like to text because it makes me feel younger. Suddenly I’m 23, not 46.
I understand too why texting has developed its unique way of spelling. The word you takes eight key strokes on a number pad, but the abbreviation u only takes two strokes. Whether spelling has changed now with full QWERTY keyboard phones, I don’t know.
At the football game Friday night, I watched a boy send a half dozen texts within ten minutes, using his full keyboard phone. I’m tempted get one myself; they tend to be larger, though, and my little Sanyo slips so easily in my pocket. So I’ll continue to text the old fashioned way.
Theologically speaking, I not only send texts, I am a text — ‘known and read by everybody,’ says St. Paul. I hope the text others read in me says ‘god luvs u.’
