Confused by God

Today there were many things I didn't do. I could try to list them and examine the reasons why, in these areas I failed to...well do anything. Missed opportunities, some with good reasons, others down to laziness, forgetfulness, willfulness maybe. So those things were not done and now they are now there in an imaginary pile, somewhere close by. Of course that's only today's pile, there's also yesterday's pile and the day before and so on. There's a whole mountain of my undone things out there. Then there's your pile and yours. And God sees them all.

So, anyway one day God was out walking, looking around, checking on how things were going in the world. No big surprises, lots of fucked up things. As usual his chosen people, the Jews were whinging and playing up, the Christians and followers of Islam were quite prickly, various other cults and types too, but so were the Arabs, so were the European tribes, the Chinese, the Africans and Asians were also at it. The USA and South America were a confusing blur. It was all quite dispiriting. Then there were endless media and political debates and disagreements, business deals and trickery, downright criminality and here and there (and more prevalent than you might think) pure evil. God tended to get annoyed with the pure evil stuff. It operated and succeeded at all levels, from the school playgrounds to boardrooms to torture cells and in bedrooms and battlefields. There was a lot of it about.

The trouble was that God couldn't really get to grips with all this stuff. A long time ago he'd cut a deal and declared himself to be... well out of it. He'd agreed with himself (a very powerful thing to do) that he wouldn't interfere. He'd just observe from a distance and that observation would go on for a while until (and he couldn't quite remember all the details) a few significant events occurred and those, in the right order, would act as a trigger for him to go into action and wind things up. So every day he wondered around looking at all the major and petty wars, all the crimes and accidents, all the sparks and fires and then did sweet nothing about them.

At first he'd been indifferent, people fought and quarrelled but that was about it. They believed in magic and other things, they dabbled and did some bad things but it was all on a small enough scales not to make much of a difference. Time passed, he continued with his walks and every day, degree by degree, as history unfolded and people got”clever” it all just became close to intolerable.

“I'm just pissed with all of this,” said God. “The world is an unholy mess, everybody does stupid things, they don't learn from their mistakes and frankly all the religious types are the worst. What are those people thinking and why do they always have silly hats and ridiculous costumes and what's with all the singing and chanting and praying? Do they really think I get off on that and that I'm actually listening to all that drivel? Just because I can be everywhere that doesn’t mean I'm open to listen to every banal utterance, no matter how sincere and well meant it may be. Give me a break!”

So there I was thinking of my pile of ignored and outstanding things and how God might well regard it. A complete set of royally troublesome thoughts really and I'm still inadvertently bothering a beleaguered and confused God. Meanwhile God's still out there, walking and observing, occasionally counting up things, secretly wanting to swat the human flies that circle around him screaming for attention like drunken beggars and, with a patience that can only be described as divine or crazy still managing to ignore the clamour.

“Those people think I really love them, they think it's OK to do whatever, behave appallingly and that in some magnanimous way I'll just forgive them all and they'll go to heaven. I've no idea how that idea came about. They're all mortal, they're human beings, they're one up from apes, they're all going to croak sooner or later and then it's curtains but do they believe that? They've bought into a myth and fairy tale that says they'll live on in spirit someplace in the ether. Well I don't remember ever saying anything about that...or did I? I forget sometimes and they just never shut up.” God wheeled away from the clamour, hands behind his back and began to whistle some Mozart, he whistled and smiled. “That kid knew a thing or two, I'm actually quite proud of him but as usual it all went wrong for him. Nice tunes though.” He walked on and then stopped and thought a little, “I'm not really happy with the three score and ten, I think I'll do something about that...”