Monday, March 09, 2009

"Hello God? Guess who?"

Given the busy schedules of people these days, finding time to connect to a "Higher Power" isn't always possible. However a dutch artist, Johan Van der Dong, appears to have taken this into account and has provided a hotline, whereby people can connect to/with God via phone.

The purpose of God's Hotline as it has become known is to focus attention on the means in which Dutch people perceive religion. To this end the artist selected a mobile phone number to underline that God was available anywhere and anytime.

Actually, it's part of Van der Dong's art installation in the town of Groningen and anyone calling will receive the message:

"This is the voice of God, I am not able to speak to you at the moment, but please leave a message."

To date 1,000 messages have been recorded and the messages are confidential and not part of the art project.

"I'm not a pastor, I'm an artist and I won't listen to the messages. It's a secret between the Lord and the people who are calling."

Hmmmm... I wonder if and what the "real" Supreme Being feels about this concept. Mind you, you hav'ta give the artist credit for ingenuity and a means to attract attention to himself and his work. More interesting is what type of message God would leave on our answering machines.

"Hello John Smith. This is God responding to your message left on my answering machine, yesterday..."

The phone number for anyone interested in leaving a message is:

The telephone number is 06-4424-4901 for callers in the Netherlands and +316-4424-4901 for those from other countries.

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