Your Call Is Important to Us

Arthur had been on hold for forty three minutes when the recorded voice told him his call was important.

He did not believe her.

At first he had believed her a little. She sounded calm, professional and faintly sympathetic. The sort of voice that made you think help was near.

By the third repetition he had grown suspicious.

By the ninth he had decided she was lying.

"Your call is important to us," she said again.

Arthur stared at the phone.

"Then answer it," he said.

No one answered it.

Instead the music returned.

It was cheerful music. That made it worse. Arthur could have endured solemn music. He might even have respected it. A slow violin would have acknowledged the seriousness of the hour. But this was bright, tinny and determinedly optimistic. It sounded like something played in a lift that had never known suffering.

Arthur placed the phone on speaker and set it on the kitchen table.

The problem was simple. At least it had been simple when he began.

His electricity bill had arrived showing a charge that could only have been correct if he had secretly been powering a small airport.

He lived alone in a modest unit. He owned one television, one fridge, one washing machine and a kettle that had been with him since the Howard government. He did not run a bakery, data centre or illegal submarine repair operation.

Yet the bill suggested otherwise.

He had tried the website first.

The website had asked him to log in.

He had logged in.

The website had then told him his password was incorrect.

He had reset the password.

The reset link arrived after twenty minutes and expired after fifteen.

Arthur stared at that message for some time.

Then he tried again.

This time he managed to enter the account page only to find a cheerful button that said, "Need help?"

He clicked it.

A chat window opened.

"Hi, I am Eli, your virtual assistant," it said.

Arthur typed, "My bill is wrong."

Eli replied, "I can help you understand your bill."

Arthur typed, "No, it is wrong."

Eli replied, "Here are some common reasons bills may be higher than expected."

Arthur typed, "Human."

Eli replied, "I am here to help."

Arthur typed, "Person."

Eli replied, "I did not quite understand that."

Arthur typed, "Representative."

Eli replied, "Would you like to know more about solar plans?"

That was when Arthur rang the number printed in small grey letters at the bottom of the bill.

Now he was in the kitchen listening to bright music and reassessing some of his views on civilisation.

Arthur was not an impatient man in theory.

He believed in patience. He admired patience. He had nodded at many sermons about patience. He had even once told his daughter that patience was a fruit of the Spirit.

He had done this while teaching her to drive.

That had tested the statement.

But phone queues brought out something in him that was not quite fruit. More like bark. Possibly thorns.

On the table beside the phone lay his Bible reading notes from that morning. They were still open where he had left them.

James 1.

Let endurance have its perfect work.

Arthur had underlined the sentence before breakfast.

That felt like a mistake now.

He looked at the page and then at the phone.

"Very funny, Lord," he said.

The music stopped.

Arthur sat upright.

A click sounded through the speaker.

Then silence.

"Hello?" Arthur said.

Another click.

Then the recorded voice returned.

"Your call is important to us."

Arthur closed his eyes.

There are moments in the Christian life when sanctification feels less like a shining path and more like not throwing a phone across the kitchen.

Arthur did not throw the phone.

He did move it slightly farther away.

He made a cup of tea while the music continued. He opened the fridge, forgot why he had opened it and closed it again. He looked at the bill. He looked at the Bible. He looked at the clock.

Fifty six minutes.

His neighbour appeared outside the kitchen window.

Mrs Patel from unit three was in her garden holding a watering can. She was eighty one, small, sharp eyed and able to detect distress through brickwork. She looked through the window at Arthur, then at the phone on the table. Her eyebrows rose.

Arthur lifted the bill.

She nodded with deep understanding.

Two minutes later she tapped at his back door.

"Still waiting?" she asked.

"Apparently my call is important."

"Ah," she said. "Very bad sign."

Arthur smiled despite himself.

She stepped inside without ceremony and placed a small plate of biscuits on the table.

"I made too many."

Arthur knew this was not true. Mrs Patel never made too many of anything. She made exactly what she intended and gave away exactly what she had already decided.

"Thank you."

She pointed at the phone.

"Electric company?"

"Yes."

"Bill wrong?"

"Very wrong."

"They did that to me last year. Said I used more power than the shopping centre."

"What happened?"

"I waited ninety minutes. Then they cut me off."

Arthur looked at her.

"That is not encouraging."

"No," she said. "But I got biscuits out of it."

She sat opposite him.

Arthur felt both grateful and irritated. He had planned to be annoyed alone. There is a certain gloomy dignity in private frustration. Shared frustration requires manners.

The music continued.

Mrs Patel picked up the bill and adjusted her glasses.

"This is too high."

"Exactly."

"Maybe they think you are growing tomatoes with special lights."

"I am not."

"I know. Your tomatoes are terrible."

Arthur looked at her.

She smiled.

He laughed then. Not much but enough to loosen something in his chest.

For the next ten minutes they sat at the table listening to the music and eating biscuits.

Arthur told her about the website. She told him about a bank app that once locked her out because it did not believe she was herself. Arthur said modern life was becoming ridiculous. Mrs Patel said modern life had always been ridiculous but now required more passwords.

"Your call is important to us," said the voice.

"She is very committed," Mrs Patel said.

"To lying."

"Perhaps she is only reading what she was given."

Arthur looked at her.

"That is annoyingly fair."

Mrs Patel shrugged.

"Most people are only doing the bit in front of them."

That sentence stayed in the room longer than Arthur expected.

Most people are only doing the bit in front of them.

He thought of the person who would eventually answer. Someone in a headset. Someone perhaps underpaid, monitored and tired. Someone who had already spent the morning being blamed for a computer system they did not design and policies they did not write.

Arthur did not want to think about that.

It was easier to be angry at the company when the company remained faceless.

A person would complicate things.

The music stopped again.

Arthur and Mrs Patel froze.

A voice came through.

"Thank you for calling. My name is Jasmine. How can I help you today?"

Arthur snatched up the phone.

"Hello. Yes. I have been waiting for over an hour and my bill is completely wrong."

The words came out sharper than he intended.

There was a tiny pause.

"I am sorry about the wait," Jasmine said. "I know that is frustrating."

Arthur nearly said, "Do you?"

But he caught himself.

Only just.

Mrs Patel looked at him over her glasses.

Arthur took a breath.

"Thank you," he said. "I am sorry. I am a bit wound up."

"That is all right," Jasmine said.

Her voice changed slightly. Not much. Just enough for Arthur to hear the person beneath the script.

He explained the bill. She asked for his account number. He gave it. She asked for his address. He gave it. She asked if she could place him on a brief hold while she checked the meter data.

Arthur looked at the ceiling.

"Yes," he said. "A brief hold would be lovely."

Mrs Patel raised an eyebrow.

Arthur mouthed, "I am trying."

The music returned.

But this time it felt different.

Not good. That would be overstating it. The music was still dreadful. No Christian doctrine required him to pretend otherwise.

But something in him had shifted.

He looked again at James 1.

Let endurance have its perfect work.

Arthur had always preferred patience in noble settings. Hospital waiting rooms. Family hardship. Long seasons of prayer. The sort of patience that could be mentioned in a testimony without sounding silly.

But perhaps patience was also grown in kitchens while eating biscuits and listening to bad hold music.

Perhaps the Lord did not wait for grand circumstances before working on the heart.

Perhaps ordinary interruptions were not interruptions to discipleship at all. Perhaps they were often the workshop.

Jasmine returned.

"Thank you for waiting. I can see the issue."

Arthur sat up.

"You can?"

"Yes. It looks like your meter was misread. The reading entered is much higher than the actual pattern for the property. I am going to raise a correction."

Arthur felt relief surge through him.

"So I do not owe this amount?"

"No. Not based on what I am seeing."

"That is wonderful."

"I will need to send it through the review process. You should receive an adjusted bill within five to seven business days."

Arthur almost groaned at the phrase.

Five to seven business days.

The official language of purgatory.

But he stopped himself.

"Thank you, Jasmine. I appreciate your help."

"You are welcome."

Then she hesitated.

"Thank you for being kind about it. People are not always kind."

Arthur looked at the Bible on the table.

Something in his chest sank a little.

"I am sorry to hear that," he said.

"It happens."

Her voice was polite. Too polite. The kind of polite that has learned to protect itself.

Arthur felt suddenly ashamed of the way he had begun the call. He had not abused her. He had not shouted. But he had aimed his frustration in her direction as though she were the whole company shrunk into one tired voice.

"Jasmine," he said.

"Yes?"

"I hope the rest of your day is peaceful."

There was a small silence.

Then she said, "Thank you. I hope yours is too."

The call ended.

The kitchen became quiet.

Arthur looked at the phone.

Mrs Patel reached for another biscuit.

"Good result," she said.

"Yes."

"You were nearly rude."

"I was not rude."

She gave him a look.

"I was adjacent to rude."

"Very close neighbour."

Arthur laughed.

Then he sighed.

"She sounded tired."

"Most people are."

That was another sentence that refused to leave quickly.

Most people are tired.

Arthur thought about how often he moved through a day assuming his inconvenience was the main story. The slow driver in front of him. The young cashier who packed badly. The receptionist who asked him to repeat information he had already given. The person at the call centre whose screen had frozen while he sat at home imagining incompetence.

He was not wrong that systems were often maddening. Some modern systems seemed designed by people who had never met a human being and were hoping not to start now.

But behind many of those systems were people trying to get through their shift. People with sore backs, sick children, anxious thoughts, lonely evenings, unpaid bills and managers timing their calls.

The problem had been real.

The bill had been wrong.

The wait had been absurd.

But none of that gave Arthur permission to forget that Jasmine was his neighbour.

Not geographically perhaps.

But before God, yes.

Mrs Patel stood to leave.

"Do you want me to come next time you call them?"

"Are you offering moral support?"

"No. Biscuit supervision."

"I may need both."

She smiled and took the empty plate.

After she left Arthur sat for a while at the kitchen table.

The Bible remained open.

He read the verse again.

Let endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

He had always heard that as something large and difficult. It was. But maybe it was also smaller and nearer than he had realised.

Endurance in a hospital corridor.

Endurance in grief.

Endurance in temptation.

Endurance in loneliness.

And endurance when the recorded voice says your call is important for the seventeenth time and your soul begins looking for loopholes in the Sermon on the Mount.

Arthur smiled.

Then he prayed.

It was not a grand prayer.

"Lord, forgive me for making my frustration bigger than my love. Help me remember that people are people even when systems are stupid. Teach me patience before I need it. Amen."

The adjusted bill arrived six days later.

It was still not quite right.

Arthur stared at it for a long time.

Then he made tea, opened the packet of biscuits Mrs Patel had left behind and picked up the phone.

The same recorded voice answered.

"Your call is important to us."

Arthur leaned back in his chair.

"I certainly hope so," he said.

But this time he placed his Bible beside the phone before the music began.

Not because he had suddenly become a saint immune to irritation.

He had not.

Because he knew now that even a phone queue could become a place of obedience.

Even a kitchen table could become an altar.

Even a frustrating interruption could become a lesson in love.

And somewhere, at the other end of the line, there might be another tired person doing the bit in front of them.

Christ had been patient with Arthur for far longer than seventy two minutes.

Arthur could afford to be patient with them.