Talking to God

Talking philosophy(me, king of segues), I was sauntering along, minding nobody’s business when I spy this forlorn phone booth with nothing close to it. “Black Rock City Phone Co., Talk to God.” Really? Except for Abraham, Saul, Moses, or Donald Trump, how often does one get a chance to do this? I picked up the receiver.

“Hi, this is God.”

“Hello, God. I imagine that if I were actually talking with God, I’d let Him do most of the talking.”

“That’s o. k. . . . [pause]”

“Oh, there would be so many questions. Why’s there pain and suffering on Earth? Was there a JFK assassination conspiracy? Will my sons be happy?”

Silence.

“Sorry to bother you. It’s rather a stranger in a strange land to be talking with God.”

He replied with the standard BM greeting, “Are you having a good burn?”

“WOW! I’ll be integrating this experience the rest of my life. I suppose I should let you go. You have more important things to do than chat with me.” Inspired, I asked, “Would you forgive me my sins?”

SILENCE.

Yao! Yao Ming! Perhaps “God” didn’t hear me, so I repeated, “Would you just say, ‘I forgive you.’” [God going deaf would be weird, and S/He theoretically could read my mind.]

“I don’t feel comfortable doing that.”

“I suppose since we all have God within us, I can forgive myself. Thanks.” Oh, well. Nice try, Mr. Mellow. I left the confessional booth, and the next person picked up the receiver. She had a different approach.

“Hi, God! How ya doing?”


by Mr. Mellow

About the author: Tales From the Playa

Tales From the Playa

Tales From the Playa are dreams and memories of events that took place at Burning Man, as told by participants. Submit your story here.

2 Comments on “Talking to God

  • Anna says:

    I saw the phone booth too. Being a somewhat recent atheist, I was curious what God would have to say.

    I picked up the handset. “Hello?”

    There was a dial tone and no response.

    How fitting.

    <3

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  • g says:

    Many years ago I went to the god phone booth right after the friend of mine stepped in and seemingly talked to somebody. I went next, picked up the phone and it was dead silent.
    Being open-minded, and expecting anything at Burning Man, I figured this was part of the shtick, and that my friend was pulling a make-believe or something. So I carried on a fake conversation with this dead silent phone. The next thing I know, there is somebody under a shade structure down about 50 yards from the phone booth screaming at me in exasperation at the top of his lungs yelling something to the effect hang the fukin’ phone up and try again it’s not working!
    I think I found the real live God that day.

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