{"id":16658,"date":"2015-05-04T17:16:50","date_gmt":"2015-05-04T23:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/?p=16658"},"modified":"2015-05-06T03:04:14","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T09:04:14","slug":"i-have-heard-you-calling-in-the-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2015\/05\/i-have-heard-you-calling-in-the-night\/","title":{"rendered":"I Have Heard You Calling in the Night"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The voice came in the quietest part of the night, and it was loud enough to pull me out of my sleep.<\/p>\n

\u201cThreat has been detected,\u201d it said. <\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t place it. It belonged to a woman, which, in this apartment, made it a novelty. It seemed to be coming from the living room. Then I heard it again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThreat has been detected,\u201d it repeated. The intonation was exactly the same, but I thought I detected new insistence, as though the threat \u2013 whatever it might be \u2013 had grown a touch more imminent over the past five seconds.<\/p>\n

I should explain a couple of things. First, I live in an apartment complex that just can\u2019t manage to gentrify itself. Despite the yearly rent hikes, sketchy characters continue to find the place much more appealing than solid citizens do. Over the years, I\u2019ve heard stories of burglaries and robberies, and been shanghaied, as a mediator, into botched drug deals<\/a> and violent domestic disputes.<\/a> One May evening a few years ago, I stepped out on my porch to find a dozen policemen crowding around the next-door bungalow. When I asked what was going on, one of the policemen explained, a little huffily, that my neighbor had violated his parole. Then he ordered me back inside.<\/p>\n

But even within the complex there are better and worse areas. When I came back after a year the Middle East, the management packed me off to a banlieue. Situated on the farthest reaches of the property, my unit faces the spiked fence marking the beginning of the government-subsidized housing where East African refugees live. Let me say for the record that I\u2019ve met a few of these refugees over the years, and most impressed me as nice guys with great stories. The Somali who wandered one night into our pool area with a pistol in the waistband of his shorts and a look in his eyes suggesting he\u2019d found a barista to fix him a qat<\/em> latte, was an exception. <\/p>\n

But every morning since moving into my new place, I\u2019ve seen five or six of these urchins vaulting over the fence, sparing me only the most casual of glances. Call it old age, but it\u2019s starting to do a number on my nerves. Point is, the idea that a threat had been detected in the immediate vicinity of my living quarters didn\u2019t seem very farfetched at all.<\/p>\n

More context: I have always felt a twinge of envy for people who claim to have heard God\u2019s voice. I don\u2019t mean people who were handed wide-ranging missions that took a lifetime to complete, e.g. \u201cRebuild My house.\u201d I\u2019m thinking more of people who seem to get exactly the small, helpful promptings they need at exactly the moments when they need them most. Surely you must have a friend who says things like, \u201cAnd then I heard a little voice telling me not to worry, that everything was going to be fine. And then I felt so light, just like a huge stone had tumbled from between my shoulders. And then I bowled a strike\u2026\u201d Those are the people I have in mind.<\/p>\n

Just then, the voice repeated itself verbatim for the third time: \u201cThreat has been detected.\u201d<\/p>\n

As I finally sat up in bed and untangled myself from my sheet, I felt more exalted than anxious. Between the cover of night and the three repetitions, the scene was starting to look very 1 Samuel. But then, while I was groping my way toward the voice, it hit me: It was a woman\u2019s voice!<\/em> I may not be the most conservative Catholic in the pew, but I even I knew God spoke well below the middle C, like a rhythm guy in a doo-wop group \u2014 except, you know, white.<\/p>\n

Well<\/em>, I thought. What about the Blessed Mother?<\/em> A couple of years ago, I\u2019d read Portland Magazine editor Brian Doyle describe<\/a> how he\u2019d heard a voice \u201cgentle and adamant\u201d tell him, \u201cLet it go.\u201d Doyle doesn\u2019t say what \u201cit\u201d is, but he knows the voice belongs to the Mother of God, and tells us that, with her words, \u201cShe reached for me and cupped me in Her hand and spoke into the me of me and I will never forget Her voice until the day I die.\u201d<\/p>\n

With my head still fuzzy, I could not, as I stumbled into the room that serves me as study and kitchenette, have quoted these lines exactly. But I did recall the gist well enough to note a contrast. The voice I was hearing spoke in the passive, which is too bureaucratic for Mary. After all, she never told St. Bernadette, \u201cProcessions should be let come hither,\u201d or Brian Doyle, \u201cIt should be let go.\u201d Plus, far from reaching into the me of me, the voice was starting to give me a headache.<\/p>\n

Here it was again: \u201cThreat has been detected.\u201d<\/p>\n

I realized now that it was coming from my computer\u2019s speakers. Remembering that I\u2019d left my glasses on top of my keyboard, I slipped them on and peered into the bracing light coming from the screen. In the lower right-hand corner I saw a pop-up ad pop up. On it were written the same words spoken by the spectral voice: Threat has been detected.<\/p>\n

And just in case I had missed the connection, the voice itself reiterated: \u201cThreat has been detected.\u201d<\/p>\n

I tried to get rid of the ad, but every time I clicked on the little white X, it popped right back up. After about 15 mintues, I turned the volume on my speakers all the way down and went back to bed. One of these days, I suppose, I\u2019ll have to take my hard drive to the geek squad at Best Buy.<\/p>\n

Overall, I\u2019d have to say that the experience of being woken up and given a cryptic warning by a disembodied voice wasn\u2019t bad. Living where I live, I need all the help I can get. I\u2019ve got some practice in, and if God was watching, then he knows, at least, that I can be counted on for a snappy response. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The voice came in the quietest part of the night, and it was loud enough to pull me out of my sleep. \u201cThreat has been detected,\u201d it said. I couldn\u2019t place it. It belonged to a woman, which, in this apartment, made it a novelty. It seemed to be coming from the living room. Then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":192,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[938,49,1216,208,1215,224],"class_list":["post-16658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-brian-doyle","tag-catholicism","tag-portland-magazine","tag-saints","tag-somalia","tag-technology"],"yoast_head":"\nI Have Heard You Calling in the Night<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The voice came in the quietest part of the night, and it was loud enough to pull me out of my sleep. \u201cThreat has been detected,\u201d it said. I couldn\u2019t place\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2015\/05\/i-have-heard-you-calling-in-the-night\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I Have Heard You Calling in the Night\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The voice came in the quietest part of the night, and it was loud enough to pull me out of my sleep. \u201cThreat has been detected,\u201d it said. I couldn\u2019t place\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2015\/05\/i-have-heard-you-calling-in-the-night\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Diary of a Wimpy Catholic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-05-04T23:16:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-05-06T09:04:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Max Lindenman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Max Lindenman\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2015\/05\/i-have-heard-you-calling-in-the-night\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2015\/05\/i-have-heard-you-calling-in-the-night\/\",\"name\":\"I Have Heard You Calling in the Night\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-05-04T23:16:50+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-05-06T09:04:14+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/f28642d6ff756d058ed6ff35f876e355\"},\"description\":\"The voice came in the quietest part of the night, and it was loud enough to pull me out of my sleep. \u201cThreat has been detected,\u201d it said. I couldn\u2019t place\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2015\/05\/i-have-heard-you-calling-in-the-night\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2015\/05\/i-have-heard-you-calling-in-the-night\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2015\/05\/i-have-heard-you-calling-in-the-night\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"I Have Heard You Calling in the Night\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/\",\"name\":\"Diary of a Wimpy Catholic\",\"description\":\"A Hedonist Contemplates Heaven\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/f28642d6ff756d058ed6ff35f876e355\",\"name\":\"Max Lindenman\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2823340b259acd6c04cbc8d94213ca58?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2823340b259acd6c04cbc8d94213ca58?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"caption\":\"Max Lindenman\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/author\/maxlindenman\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"I Have Heard You Calling in the Night","description":"The voice came in the quietest part of the night, and it was loud enough to pull me out of my sleep. \u201cThreat has been detected,\u201d it said. I couldn\u2019t place","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2015\/05\/i-have-heard-you-calling-in-the-night\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"I Have Heard You Calling in the Night","og_description":"The voice came in the quietest part of the night, and it was loud enough to pull me out of my sleep. \u201cThreat has been detected,\u201d it said. I couldn\u2019t place","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2015\/05\/i-have-heard-you-calling-in-the-night\/","og_site_name":"Diary of a Wimpy Catholic","article_published_time":"2015-05-04T23:16:50+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-05-06T09:04:14+00:00","author":"Max Lindenman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Max Lindenman","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2015\/05\/i-have-heard-you-calling-in-the-night\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2015\/05\/i-have-heard-you-calling-in-the-night\/","name":"I Have Heard You Calling in the Night","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-05-04T23:16:50+00:00","dateModified":"2015-05-06T09:04:14+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/f28642d6ff756d058ed6ff35f876e355"},"description":"The voice came in the quietest part of the night, and it was loud enough to pull me out of my sleep. \u201cThreat has been detected,\u201d it said. I couldn\u2019t place","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2015\/05\/i-have-heard-you-calling-in-the-night\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2015\/05\/i-have-heard-you-calling-in-the-night\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2015\/05\/i-have-heard-you-calling-in-the-night\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"I Have Heard You Calling in the Night"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/","name":"Diary of a Wimpy Catholic","description":"A Hedonist Contemplates Heaven","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/f28642d6ff756d058ed6ff35f876e355","name":"Max Lindenman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2823340b259acd6c04cbc8d94213ca58?s=96&d=mm&r=r","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2823340b259acd6c04cbc8d94213ca58?s=96&d=mm&r=r","caption":"Max Lindenman"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/author\/maxlindenman\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/192"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16658\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}