When I looked at my watch on Friday I realized I’d be late for my massage if I didn’t get a move on. That massage is a cherished bi-monthly event, and my masseuse is a person so kind and dear I wouldn’t want to inconvenience her by being late. I put my purse in the car, and then remembered that my iPhone was in the house. I went back in to retrieve it and saw the dogs looking at me, their eyes transmitting an SOS of immanent starvation. Right, dinnertime.

I scooped up their bowls and went back to the garage, where their food is kept in a bin. I placed the phone on the hood of the car while I filled their dishes. That innocent placement launched the misadventure of the iPhone.

We’ve all done it, I think: put something on the hoods or roofs of our cars and driven off unaware. Years ago my husband did it with a friend’s rifle (unloaded). He ended up replacing the gun for his friend. Another person I know did it with an expensive camera; still another, a nice hot travel mug full of morning coffee with cream.

My masseuse lives only a few blocks away. I usually walk or ride my bike there, except of course when I am running late. Like Friday. I backed out of the garage and onto the street, pulled away, drove forward a couple of blocks, turned right, proceeded ahead, turned right again, drove up a side street, made a U-turn, and then parked in front of her house. Later, after the massage, I returned home and put my hand in my purse for my phone. Not finding it, I went to the car and looked. Nothing.

I stared at the car and then it hit me. I had left the phone on the hood. Chuckling at my absent-mindedness, I fetched a flashlight and began to search the garage. Then I searched the driveway. Then the street in front of the house. Next I leashed up the dogs and retraced my steps to the masseuse’s home, flashlight sweeping the street and sidewalk. Nothing. I knocked on my masseuse’s door. She disappeared inside and looked, and then looked some more. “I’m so sorry it’s not here. My sister lost her iPhone yesterday,” she offered, helpfully. In a small wave of solace I felt slightly less alone.

I walked home again, sweeping the street with the flashlight. The dogs thought this was a fine way to spend an evening, although they were puzzled that we couldn’t stop and sniff every last thing. I searched the driveway again, and the street, and the garage, and the car. I thought about what was on my phone: thankfully no passwords or on-line banking; just a lot of photographs. There were photos of the cottage in Maine, photos of hikes with friends, photos of people cuddling with the dogs in my office, photos of a whiteboard full of meeting notes I was supposed to transcribe and share. Nothing cringe-worthy, but plenty of images close to my heart—images I wanted very much to see again.

I sighed and tried to settle in to the lesson of letting go. I sighed again and envisioned myself the next morning waiting in a line at the Verizon store instead of hiking. I sighed a third time, and then it occurred to me to do what any sentient person should do: I Googled “what to do if you lose your iPhone.” I learned about the “Find my iPhone” app, and wondered if I’d been clever enough to enable it on my phone. I grabbed my iPad, went to “Settings” and found it. Presently a small phone icon appeared on the screen, together with a pulsing blue dot that indicated the location of the iPad. The phone, it seemed, was less than a mile away!

I could feel something primal arise within me, the ancient hunter-gatherer instinct. My quarry was close at hand, hiding—the rascal. For the next half hour or so, the iPad, the pulsing blue dot, and I marched around the neighborhood in the dark, shining the flashlight under bushes, beneath piles of leaves slumped against the curb. At times the phone icon and the blue dot seemed to nearly align. Then I’d turn and the two would jump away from each other like matching poles of two magnets. I wondered if someone had my phone and was on the move, going door to door looking for its owner. But the night was quiet, with no one out and about save for me, muttering to myself in the shrubbery with the iPad and flashlight. I pictured Jesus, the shepherd, looking for us lost sheep in much the same way.

At one point the phone icon came to rest in a house down the street. I knocked on their door, holding my iPad and flashlight before me, hoping my mission would be evident. A man answered the door with his young son. “Hi, did you guys find an iPhone?” I asked. “No,” they replied. “Shoot,” I said, waving the iPad, “the locator shows it’s around here somewhere.” Feeling accused perhaps, the man repeated brusquely, “No. We don’t have it. We haven’t been outside!” I thanked them, the door closed in my face before I could say anything further, and I later learned that the man—from South America—has felt the sting of racist attitudes in another Front Range town. Next time I see him I hope it will be an opportunity to get to know him and welcome him to our neighborhood. The words of Jesus—I was a stranger and you did not welcome me—hover as a reminder.

I walked away from his door and the phone icon jumped across the street to my neighbor’s house. I rang her bell but she was out for the evening. I followed the icon to her backyard, and then it hopped to…her bedroom. (I think it was at this point that it occurred to me to switch the map on the iPad from “traffic” to “satellite” which, if you ever find yourself in this situation, is infinitely more helpful.) My neighbor and I have shared copies of our house keys with each other so we can water plants and check on things when one of us is traveling. We walk my dogs together, and sometimes ride bikes together too. In fact, we had just taken a long bike ride earlier that day. I went home, found her house key, and let myself in to her garage, hoping she would not choose that moment to pull in, her headlights illumining me and my iPad, exposing us like a raccoon at the trash bin.

I turned on her garage light and there on the step to her laundry room was my iPhone, with a black eye and broken nose from flying off the hood of my car, but otherwise intact and functional. She and I spoke later and she told me the story of her own phone ringing earlier that evening while I was at my massage. “Hi Susan,” she said, recognizing my phone number. “Um, it’s not Susan,” came the reply. “We think we’ve found her phone.” It was a couple who live a few streets and a few blocks away. My neighbor didn’t catch their names. They’d been driving along and almost ran over my phone lying in the street. They took it home, and—from the smudged fingerprints on my screen—must have been able to figure out my pass-code and unlock it. They dialed the last number I had called, which was my neighbor’s when we had connected for our bike ride that afternoon.

They drove to her house and returned the phone. She thanked them, set it on the step in her garage, and—as she was pressed now for time--took off for her evening’s engagement, figuring she’d bring the phone over to me later on.

To be the recipient of such unwarranted kindness and care is a humbling experience. Strangers who find something and go to great trouble to find its owner and return it; a neighbor who is willing to draw you into her life and extend herself into yours in helpful ways; the gentleness of a universe that sometimes offers us second chances. It’s a small matter, a lost telephone. It’s just a gadget, after all, not a child or a pet or a home. It is not necessary to life and happiness, if you think about it. It can be readily replaced. Photographs are just moments in time you happened to capture. God willing, there will be more life, and more moments, and more photographs.

Occasions like this remind us that the news stories of haters, abusers, and hypocrites that clamor for our attention each day do not speak for humanity. If we are not careful, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that they do, and if that happens, then we close ourselves down and shut out others. In this season of gratitude I am thankful for instances—even exasperating ones, like losing something—that speak above the clamor, and remind me of the goodness that surrounds us and of the blessing of community.