Can We Talk?
Mary Beth Bonacci
I love checking my home telephone's messages. I mean, I really love checking those messages. When I'm at my office and I have a free minute, I dial my home number. When I'm driving and there's nothing good on the radio, I hit the speed dial on my cell phone. Even when I'm on the road, I can't resist stopping at every pay phone I see to dial the special 800 number that connects me to my personal messages. Sometimes I'll check them five minutes after leaving the house. Sometimes I'll check them twice in a row. "What's the harm? Maybe an important call just came in. Besides, they don't know I just checked."
Why do I do it? I like to hear from my friends and family. I'm reassured that no one is desperately trying to reach me with bad news. And I like knowing that someone is thinking of me and who that someone is at any given time.
Which is why I hate hang-ups. "Who was trying to reach me? Why? Was it a friend? Was it long distance? Was it the man of my dreams? Did I win the lottery?"
And so, I was first in line for the new technology Caller ID. Now I know who called and exactly when they called, even if they didn't leave a message. No more hang-ups. No more stealth callers. Now there's a permanent record of everything that happens on this phone.
And, sure enough, the first time I came home, there were no messages. But my trusty Caller ID box assured me that the phone had indeed been ringing. Aha! Busted!
And so I checked the numbers. Hmm. That's my cell phone. There's my office. My office again. That's the gym from when I worked out. Cell phone again. Pay phone? Who was that? Oh, yeah, I stopped at the mall. Office, office, office. Cell phone.
Busted.
Funny how embarrassed I felt. After all, I knew I had called home all of those times. But I guess it's like a tree falling in the forest. If no one can hear it, does it really fall? Maybe I thought that if there was no record of all those calls, I didn't really make them. And now this stupid little machine was telling on me.
Then I got to thinking of other areas of my life. Like sin. How many times do I commit fleeting little sins? Just a quick moment an unkind thought, a good deed left undone, a moment of grace ignored. No one else knows. The whole instance moves quickly into the past, immediately forgotten. It's gone.
Or is it?
Our Faith tells us that God has the ultimate "Caller ID." Every action, every omission, every thought . . . it's all being recorded. And at the end, when we give an account of our lives, we'll have to explain it. All of it.
Those little moments we thought were gone will be back with a vengeance. Remember in grade school, when a teacher could instill fear in your heart by threatening to note some infraction "on your permanent record"? You'd picture your adult self trying to get a job, and finding a REJECTED stamp on your application because you'd written a nasty word on the chalkboard in fourth grade.
God isn't nearly as mean as your fourth grade teacher. But He does keep a "permanent record" of your sins. A record you're going to have to explain someday.
It would probably pay to keep the list as short as possible.
