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<\/a>It was a rare (RARE) Saturday afternoon moment. Both kids were asleep at the same time, and my spouse was out of the house. I had\u00a0just settled into the good chair with a library book, and the phone rang. I glanced over and there it was\u2026the \u201cunknown caller.\u201d<\/p>\nWhat do you do? I almost never answer. Especially not on\u00a0a Saturday, when there are sleeping babies and good books to be read.\u00a0 It was almost a no-brainer.<\/p>\n
And yet, this time, I answered. For whatever reason. And it was my brother, calling from his tour in South Africa! What a nice surprise for a lazy Saturday. I had just sort of figured i wouldn\u2019t get to talk to him for the next month or so.<\/p>\n
Had i not pushed the \u201caccept\u201d button on the unknown, I would have missed him.<\/p>\n
What is it about our hyper-programmed and connected lives that feeds and aversion to the unknown? Maybe it\u2019s a mistrust of the hierarchy and organization of the civilized world. After all, how often is an \u201cunknown call\u201d something to do with debt, sales, or politics? I think, pretty much always. We don\u2019t want The Man phoning in on our Saturday down time, so we ignore the call.<\/p>\n
Maybe it\u2019s because we\u2019ve watched too many scary movies where the unknown caller is Calling From Inside the HOUSE!!! (<\/em>Get out of my head, dead Drew Barrymore.) Or maybe it\u2019s because, on most of our phones these days, the regular caller is not just identified by name, but also by picture, status update, and most recent location. This feature has creeped me out for awhile, for many reasons, the loss of privacy being just the beginning. But maybe, beyond being a stalker\u2019s dream (again, too many scary movies!) the smart-phone- iPhone- droid mode of communicating has done something more deeply harmful to us.\u00a0It has killed not only the mystery of the world, but our ability to respond to it. If there\u2019s not an app for that\u2026well, we\u2019d just rather not.<\/p>\nWe don\u2019t answer the door to strangers (scary movies), we\u2019ve no time to explore a trail or stumble upon a cave, we\u2019ve no patience to engage a stranger in conversation, and we\u2019ve lost the energy required to answer the phone unless every detail of the caller\u2019s life is outlined for us on the tiny screen.\u00a0 How much do we miss?<\/p>\n
Mystery knocks every day. We rarely answer.\u00a0An unknown caller seeks a path into our Saturday, and we usually shut it down. How much fuller and more exciting might our lives be if,\u00a0every now and and then, we opened the door, or answered\u00a0with expectation, or wandered down the beckoning wilderness path? Someone we love is always half a world away, trying to reach us\u2026even if we don\u2019t know them yet.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was a rare (RARE) Saturday afternoon moment. Both kids were asleep at the same time, and my spouse was out of the house. I had\u00a0just settled into the good chair with a library book, and the phone rang. I glanced over and there it was\u2026the \u201cunknown caller.\u201d What do you do? I almost never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1154,"featured_media":2288,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,56,1],"tags":[462,23,11,59,12,24,25,26,34,463,35,27,140,60,89,68,40,464,53,36,105,20,30,31,117,14,9,32,137,44,465,466,10,45,106,467,107,16,63],"class_list":["post-424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marriage-and-family","category-spirituality-in-culture","category-uncategorized","tag-app","tag-arizona","tag-christianity","tag-church","tag-community","tag-connect","tag-desert","tag-disciples-of-christ","tag-discipleship","tag-droid","tag-evangelism","tag-faith","tag-family","tag-gifts","tag-grace","tag-hope","tag-hospitality","tag-iphone","tag-jesus","tag-joy","tag-ministry","tag-nature","tag-neighbor","tag-neighborhood","tag-parenting","tag-phoenix","tag-progressive-christianity","tag-relationships","tag-sabbath","tag-simplicity","tag-smart-phone","tag-south-africa","tag-spirituality","tag-stewardship","tag-talents","tag-unknown-caller","tag-vocation","tag-west","tag-wilderness"],"yoast_head":"\n
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