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Dear Friends:
When Alexander Graham Bell first invented the telephone, he thought the appropriate thing to say when answering was, “A-Hoy, Hoy!”
One wonders what the impact might have been on modern culture if that were the standard way to answer calls today. Would the sailor suit have come into or stayed in vogue? Perish the thought.
Bell’s rival, Thomas Edison, proposed answering the phone with, “Hello.” Until that time, “Hello” was an exclamation, something one would say when being surprised! We hear this occasionally in older movies, “HEL-lo! What is happening here!”
It is a little bit disappointing that we have lost that original use of the word “hello.” If it were still in use as an interjection, how would it change the intention of our every day greeting. Instead of just saying the word, that has come to mean, “I’m here” or “I’m listening,” could it have held on to the wonder, the surprise, the discovery implied in the exclamation?
What if, every time we said “Hello”, whether it is on the phone or in person, we take the opportunity to do more than initiate a conversation. What if we were to say “Hello” with the expectation that there is something surprising, wonderful and interesting to discover in this interaction with another human being?
Because there almost always is something surprising, wonderful and interesting to be learned when we engage with one another. God has placed an abundance of wonders in each of us. It is up to us to look for, discover, lift up and be thankful for those joys in one another.
I invite you into this practice this week: seek and see if you find the wonder waiting to be discovered in all children of God.
(And of course the mother of teenagers in me wants to remind you that significantly less of that God given joy is invited into the world, when we answer our phone with, “YO.”)
You remain in my prayers,
+Shay
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