Talking to God

Shortly after a devastating tsunami hit Japan in 2011, Itaru Sasaki placed a phone booth in his garden. Inside is a disconnected rotary telephone. People come from miles away to the small town of Otsuchi to enter that phone booth, pick up the receiver, and speak to the relatives and friends they lost in the tsunami. The mourners act as if they are really talking to the dead, unburdening themselves of guilt, grief, and pain. An article from CityLab describes the comfort the phone booth offers:

The booth invites people to drop in to work out painful feelings in a comfortable space: sadness that can feel all-encompassing is, for a moment, confined to a specific shape and landscape. It’s a private way of wrestling with a tragedy that reshaped the whole community.

As a believer I know that I cannot speak to the dead through a disconnected phone line in the middle of nowhere. I'm sure most of the people who visit that booth know that, too. But I am intrigued by the comfort this activity brings people. I think this activity would helpful to many struggling individuals. Imagine this: place a phone down in front of a friend whom you have been counseling for awhile and ask him to call someone he needed to say something to - could be dead or alive. "Go ahead pick it up - say whatever you need to say". After some resistance and awkward moments, I can see it happening and being effective. "Say whatever you want. Tell that person about the pain, grief, joy, sadness, lonliness, etc. you experienced because of him or her." If you had the opportunity to do that, what would you say?

The background of this blog includes an old rotary phone hanging on a wall. If you could pick up that phone right now and have a conversation with God, what would you say? Sure, as believers, we can always talk to God, but I think this exercise makes that conversation more real, more intimate.

If it's 11:59 right now as you read this post - a minute before midnight - and you are struggling with something, fighting with a desire that just won't go away, or wanting a few moments of peace, what would you say to the God of the universe who is waiting on the other end of that line?