The Black TelephoneWhen I was a young boy, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood.. I remember the polished, old case fastened to the Wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother talked to it.
Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person. Her name was "Information Please" and there was nothing she did not know. Information Please could supply anyone's number and the correct time. My personal experience with the genie-in-a-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer, the pain was terrible, but there seemed no point in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy.
I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway. The telephone! Quickly, I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear.
"Information, please" I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.
A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear.
"Information."
"I hurt my finger..." I wailed into the phone, the tears came readily enough now that I had an audience.
"Isn't your mother home?" came the question.
"Nobody's home but me," I blubbered.
"Are you bleeding?" the voice asked.
No,"I replied. "I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts."
"Can you open the icebox?" she asked.
I said I could.
"Then chip off a little bit of ice and hold it to your finger," said the voice.
After that, I called "Information Please" for everything.. I asked her for help with my geography, and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math.
She told me my pet chipmunk that I had caught in the park just the day before, would eat fruit and nuts.
Then, there was the time Petey, our pet canary, died. I called, "Information Please," and told her the sad story. She listened, and then said things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But I was not consoled. I asked her, "Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?"
She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, " Wayne , always remember that there are other worlds to sing in."
Somehow I felt better.
Another day I was on the telephone, "Information Please."
”Information," said in the now familiar voice. "How do I spell fix?" I asked.
All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest . When I was nine years old, we moved across the country to Boston . I missed my friend very much.
"Information Please" belonged in that old wooden box back home and I somehow never thought of trying the shiny new phone that sat on the table in the hall. As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me.
Often, in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.
A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle . I had about a half-hour or so between planes. I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, "Information Please."
Miraculously, I heard the small, clear voice I knew so well.
”Information."
I hadn't planned this, but I heard myself saying, "Could you please tell me how to spell fix?"
There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, "I guess your finger must have healed by now."
I laughed, "So it's really you," I said. "I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time?"
I wonder," she said, "if you know how much your call meant to me.
I never had any children and I used to look forward to your calls."
I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister.
"Please do", she said. "Just ask for Sally."
Three months later I was back in Seattle . A different voice answered, "Information."
I asked for Sally.
"Are you a friend?" she said.
"Yes, a very old friend," I answered.
"I'm sorry to have to tell you this,"She said. "Sally had been working part time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago."
Before I could hang up, she said, "Wait a minute, did you say your name was Wayne ?"
" Yes." I answered.
"Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. Let me read it to you."
The note said, "Tell him there are other worlds to sing in. He'll know what I mean."
I thanked her and hung up. I knew what Sally meant.
Never underestimate the impression you may make on others.
Good one.
So very beautiful, dear brother in Christ! Thank you. May God ever bless you.
The problem you limn here points to the total inadequacy of the arguments presented by tacticalogic and BroJoeK on this thread.
Evidently they believe the Holy Scriptures reduce to mere texts, to be read at the level of a cookbook or an instruction manual or something like.
And so, BroJoeK is looking there for the explicit positive statement: Jesus is God. He does not find that statement in so many words — notwithstanding metmom's insightful list of citations on this very point. Therefore, BroJoeK evidently feels himself entitled to "skepticism" on this point.
The problem here is, it seems none of his main interlocutors on his thread — including spirited irish, Kevmo, YHAOS; me, et al., are in need of purely doctrinal comfort in support of the way they choose to live — as far as possible, in Christ, by His Grace. I imagine most Christians are not as "sola scriptura" in their approach to the biblical idea of human existence as BroJoeK seems to be.
Of course, I suspect that BroJoeK is a poseur, just here to stir up trouble and set off bombs....
BJK's main position appears to be this: All Christians are "wrong" in their belief, and one can use a selective culling of evidence from the Holy Scriptures to prove it. And not just positive evidence; but negative evidence as well — i.e., that the Bible doesn't explicitly say "Jesus is God," in so many words.
In so many words, BJK is telling us that Christianity is basically a "dead letter"; but to say this, he has to "forget" that the people who live in Faith find that letter — the Word — very much alive in their hearts, in their direct experience, in their acts....
The Holy Scriptures are communications of direct experiences, in symbolic form, of the Patriarchs, the Prophets; the Apostles, Saints, and Disciples of God, from First to Last.
Moses' encounter with the I AM started as direct experience — which then needed to be communicated in language. Experience precedes symbolization. Symbolization precedes communication....
The "vertical orientation" of human experience is something that "horizontal" linear types simply do not grasp, let alone understand.
Such folk prefer to build Second Realities — which do not have a snowball's chance in Hell of ever being realized in this World of divine making.
Dear MHGinTN, my very dear brother in Christ, thank you ever so much for "The Black Telephone." It is a simply magnificent short story.