Reliance Unaware

Amazing how we count on certain things. This morning it is the telephone that has gone from invisible amenity to focal nuisance. Static loud enough to drown out all but the faintest inkling of what might be a human voice at the other end. We sit around the answering machine and take wild stabs at recognizing the identity of the caller. The content of the message we don't even bother with. We answer the phone as if we were an answering machine, mechanically notifying each caller that we are going to hang up on them and call back on a different phone.
Fortunately the phone company agrees that the situation is intolerable (a refreshing contrast to software companies) and will be out tomorrow to repair the lines. Which brings me back to the observation, that we count on certain things. Functioning phones being one of them. We have incorporated into our way of being the assumption that we can make contact and be contacted when and where we need. A reliable benefit that far outweighs the risk of occasional isolation. What I find so interesting is how off guard I'm caught when that on which I relied fails. It's not the failure that surprises, but the invisibility of that which I have taken for granted.
It's freeing to have things like phones move off the radar screen because of their reliability. But what about people? Or God? Have the reliable and faithful in my life become invisible? I'd hate to think that the only way to get my attention was to fail me.