God located

Some news about the whereabouts of God and the changing of attitudes towards food, all assuming that one day tiny hands will emerge from an innocent looking yoghurt pot and then try to strangle you as you sup. The spotlight shone on stage centre, a middle aged man in a blue lounge suit walked out, there was some applause as he introduced himself, then he began to speak.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I am here today to set before you my offering of a concept and premise that, once understood will shake you to the core of your very being(s). That premise is that, for sound Biblical and Theological reasons all food and drink is bad for you. Indeed I would go as far as to say that not only does food corrupt and destroy the physical body, it also destroys the human mind and gnaws away at the peace and integrity of the spirit and undermines the serenity of the soul. Food and drink my friends are trouble and no friend to you.”

Apart from a couple of nervous coughs and some rustling the hall was quiet. The audience were hanging there, tense and ready for the next part of the speech.

“Thousands of years ago, man and God were separated by man's own disobedience, man's wilful desire to find himself and his greed for power and the satisfaction of his appetites. Before this, in the mythical state referred to in the Garden of Eden, man was sustained by pure thought, by peace and by the benevolent love and sustenance provided by God as he walked amongst men. We cannot be clear on the details of how this operated, for want of a better term it represents an innocent, warm and magical time, a time before existing when being alive meant living, living in the presence of God. We believe that this God was a huge golden being who not only created the universe and all in it but was a tolerant individual who was simple in outlook and happy to share the secrets of creation with his own creations. It was therefore a dark day when God's people turned upon him and in an act of rebellion cast God out of his own garden by questioning his authority. This act was worsened by man's desire to taste the bounty of God's handiwork and to consume it. This man did, and the more he did it, the further he moved from God's plan and the more his own and earth's situation deteriorated. You can call it original sin but really it was a catastrophic event in which man devouring his own relationship with God and his environment.”

More coughs and a few sighs and further rustles.

“This downward spiral has now gone for thousands of years, distorting time, landscapes, the mind of man and his physiology – we have changed from a glorious man-god to a greedy, crawling lizard that sucks the ground, water and air in a desperate bid to satisfy a bottomless range of base appetites. These appetites led to war, poison, feats of distorted engineering and religion, sham spirituality, lies and slavery and the invention of markets and money. All of this fuelled by an unreal but vivid need to consume food sand drink and drugs in any form available. Now, when I take a piss it is as if I am some great white horse relieving itself on the cobbles of a French market. I pee a in a violent torrent of brown urine for at least twenty minutes that foams and circles and soaks the very ground at my feet. Indeed if I have partaken of the narcotic beetroot that same urine is as pink as Barbie's nipple and high in toxins and minerals. None of this is what God intended for us. If I have partaken in the narcotic beer the urine is as clear as a diamond cut glass and has the aroma of a Bavarian butcher's shop on a hot Wednesday afternoon. Good must look down upon this from his cloudy chromium chariot of fire and fury and can only detest these soft machines we inhabit.”

“I can say these things because I am his spokesman, myself and Ramases, Moses and Mohamed, we are in a direct line. A line of truth. A line of prophets and scholars of pragmatics and of committed, enlightening abstinence. We form the pure chain that links man to the heavens, to acts of ritual abstinence and beloved hunger, to the true and too long abandoned way of living, living on the air and breath of God. Ladies and gentlemen I offer you the chance to remove yourselves from the shackles of beans and sprouts, bean sprouts and whisky...and the Devil's own sweets and sweetmeats...you need the oxygen of faith in the God of your forefathers.”

There was a ripple of applause, not quite what he'd hoped for. It was a tough gig. A shrill female giggle ran across the back of the hall, there was agitation and then the whispers began. The speaker clasped his hands together, gathered his thoughts and tried to recover and to push home his point again.

“If you want it you can have it, freely and graciously given from the Holy Throne. Or you can remain here, left behind, banned forever from a world of marvellous invention and divine colour, bored and preoccupied only with the unhappy desire to fire live bullets into glass bottles full of coloured water just to watch the bright shattering and the splash. This is not how it should be.”

Outside in the theatre alley God was standing by a part open fire exit listening to the speaker, the words wafted out of the hall in the warm Californian evening air. In his jacket pocket a bottle of Jim Beam was wrapped in a brown paper bag, it was half full. God stepped back, stroked his chin and thought to himself “I do recall Ramases, Moses and Mohamed but I'm blowed if I can remember quite who this fellow is...” He lit a cigarette with a Van Halen Zippo and drew the smoke in hard, then he blew it out. “I never, ever thought that it would come to this but then what do I really know?”