Volume 30, No. 1
January 2, 2005
Ringing, In the New Year
Talk about a voice in the wilderness!
During the 1950s, Pacific Bell installed a payphone in a remote region of
California’s Mojave Desert for workers at a nearby cinder mine. When the
operation closed, the booth was abandoned. Sitting in scorched scrub 12 miles
off the interstate about 75 miles southwest of Las Vegas, the payphone was
silent for 30 years, its windows shot out and the overhead light long gone.
Then, in 1997, the day-to-day sounds of the dry, dusty desert were punctured
by the jarring, mechanical jangle of a telephone ring! Arizona computer
programmer Godfrey Daniels had read about the booth and called, just out of
curiosity. And he kept calling for a month until the phone was answered by a
local woman named Lorene who made periodic trips to the phone because she didn’t
have one of her own.
When Daniels told the story on his website, word spread quickly. An
occasional call to the wilderness grew into a telephonic torrent. People
called, just to see if someone would answer and, often, someone did. Though the
booth was accessible only by four wheel drive, travelers drove hours, just to
pick up the phone. Texan Rick Karr camped by the booth for 32 days and answered
more than 500 times.
When someone put a registry near the phone, calls were recorded from as far
away as France and New Zealand. Some people phoned, merely to see what would
happen, some were hoping to break a cycle of boredom or desperation and, for
others, it was reward enough just to send a call into the Great Unknown and get
an answer.
But the phone fell silent again in May of 2000. Pacific Bell and the
National Park Service removed it because the 20 to 30 visitors a day were
damaging the desert environment. In Area Code 760, 733-9969 is no longer in
service.
In this self-reliant age of science and cynicism, many people see
prayer as a parallel to that now-phantom phone booth. In their minds, it had
its use, years ago, but the world has moved on and prayer has been left behind,
a faded symbol of a simpler, less sophisticated time. What once seemed like
windows into the soul are shattered. There’s no longer a Light overhead.
In the lives of so many people, the means of communication with God falls
hauntingly silent, sometimes for years. Not because it doesn’t work, but
because they don’t know about prayer, or they assume there’s no One at the other
end.
But incredible things happen when people of prayer tell their stories!
Remember your first real connection? Maybe you reached out to God just out of
curiosity, not knowing what to expect — or expecting nothing— and were astounded
to get an answer. Or maybe you called out of despair and desperation,with
nothing left to lose but your pain. Either way, God hears those who call him and
responds like the loving father He is, even when He has to say no, for our own
good. He works in our circumstances and relationships to make crucial,
life-changing differences, or He works in our hearts and wills to do the same.
When we share the amazing outcomes of our encounters with Christ, it’s often
enough to encourage people to try prayer for themselves. But our witness works
best when those of us who’ve experienced the power and Presence of prayer make a
personal pilgrimage to that place where God can link us directly with the people
searching for him. Sometimes they need to hear from us before they’re ready to
connect with Christ.
So in the days ahead, be like John the Baptist. “Prepare a pathway for the
Lord’s coming... then all people will see the salvation sent from God! (Luke
3:4-6) Be that voice in the wilderness for those around you, despite the
opposition, because this desert of ours is even lonelier when a Christian’s no
longer in service.
By Rick Gamble, published in Cross Current, the weekly newsletter of the
Followers of Christ church family in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Reprint at
will in not-for-profit publications. To receive these free weekly articles via
email, send a note to
sgamble@bfree.on.ca