A Good Heart and a Cell Phone in a Broken World

Our 13-year-old son put his cell phone in his sweatshirt pocket Saturday afternoon as he headed to the high school track for a run. About halfway to the high school, he realized the phone was missing. He backtracked. Four times. He came home distressed. This was his very first cell phone. He has had it a little more than a month. I told him to go do his run and I called t-mobile to deactivate the phone. Then, something extraordinary happened.

Sunday night, I was home doing cross stitch while our son was at his post-season soccer party and my husband was taking our older son to his music lesson. I was contemplating the first Sunday of Advent, thinking about whether we are adequately teaching our children about the kindness the Mystery requires. The doorbell rang. 

An older man was standing outside our front door. He was wearing a yarmulke on so I figure he was an Orthodox Jew. He held out the phone. "Is this yours?" he asked me. "I have been trying since Saturday night to reach you. I tried the number that said 'our residence' and the number that said 'Mommy.' He finally reached my husband and drove over to return the phone to us. This afternoon, I headed to the t-mobile store near the high school where I work and had the phone reactivated. I told the clerk, a college student, my story. "If it had been an iphone you never would have gotten it back. People just take things,"she said. 

I paused for a moment to gather my thoughts. "Well," I said, "This man would have returned the phone no matter how fancy."

"the root of the righteous will bear fruit." Proverbs, Chapter 12