If I Gave You God's Phone Number.... by Mare Cromwell (2002, Hardcover)

if I gave you God’s phone number….Searching for Spirituality in America, Mare Cromwell, 2002. Pamoon Press, Baltimore, Maryland. Mare Cromwell is a self-professed recovering Catholic who spent seven years bringing this soul baring book to us. In a series of twenty-one interviews with men, women, and children from ages 8-85, Cromwell begins with the question evident in the title, “If I gave you God’s phone number, what would you do with it?” The interviews are all intriguing but the ones that most fascinated me were those in which the subject argues that they do not believe in any outer concept of God so they would not do anything with it. The fascinating aspect is that by the end of each such interview these subjects eventually do discuss their own sense of a divine order and their own spirituality. This is Cromwell’s forte – the ability to quietly question and redirect the interview while allowing the subject to come to their own remarkable conclusions. This is never more apparent than when she purposefully seeks out a Muslim mu’adhdhin from Kabul, Afghanistan immediately after the bombings of September 11, 2001. She was determined to present all aspects of prayer even and especially from the one who calls for prayer five times a day in the Sufi tradition, the mu’adhdhin. Cromwell also gives us intimate glimpses into her own struggles with the nature of spirituality and prayer in brief essays throughout the book. The personal style of prayer she shares with us are her letters to God always signed lovingly “I give You my humble love, Your daughter, Mare.”