Dear God,

I’ve been thinking about that lilies of the field parable, in which Jesus tells people to just stop worrying about how they will survive and trust you will take care of them, like you do the lilies of the field.

Well, I want an update. Haven’t a huge number of plant species become endangered or extinct since Jesus was purportedly alive and preaching about how wild plants don’t need to worry under your care?

What does that tell us about the promise Jesus made that you would just take care of us all, and we don’t have to worry? I mean, if the lilies of the field in fact are not making it, then doesn’t that suggest that the new lesson of the parable by Jesus is that we ought to forget about trusting in your providence and get to work for ourselves?

- Skeptical Sam

Sam,

Not at all.

What you lack is the proper theological context for your question. It just so happens that all the plants that have become endangered or gone extinct since Jesus gave his parable were non-believers. They refused to accept Jesus as their lord and savior, and so they became sinners, immoral weeds that had to be exterminated. Instead of casting them into a lake of fire, however, I have cast them onto a gigantic compost pile in Hell - kind of a mass grave for botanical infidels.

- God

Dear God,

The Democratic Committee in my county says that I shouldn’t worry about the apparent lack of activity from the Democrat running for Congress in my area. They say that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is in daily contact with the candidate, and everything is just fine. The people at the DCCC are really smart, and will take care of everything, they say.

Should I worry?

- Ned

Ned,

No, don’t worry. Just sit back and write a big check to that candidate. Think of it as a faith-based donation.

A lot of people say that there just isn’t any evidence that the DCCC is effective. They point out that DCCC recruits, like Michael Arcuri in New York State, tend to do very poorly with progressive Democrats and with online fundraising. While other Democratic congressional candidates have gathered hundreds of thousands of dollars through ActBlue, Arcuri has raised only $400 dollars.

But that’s just a superficial analysis of the situation. The truth is that I am on the executive board of the DCCC, and I have encouraged candidates like Mike Arcuri to engage in a new kind of campaigning employing the power of prayer. Instead of going out and campaigning on the road, or reaching out to voters online, or speaking out on important issues, the candidate is encouraged to sit in a dark room, and pray that people will turn out and vote the right way, and send lots of money in the meantime..

Surely, you don’t have a problem with this strategy. I mean, you do believe in the power of prayer, don’t you?

- God

Dear God,

In the Bible, it says that some day in the future you will bring forth calamity and destroy the earth. When is that going to happen?

-Bartleby

Bartleby,

I have already brought forth a calamity that will destroy the earth. I created people.

-God

God,

I’m hoping that you can settle a meteorological dispute between myself and my boss.

I work at TV station Action 5 in Clearwater, Mississippi, where I’m the weatherman. I always understood, as Pat Robertson says, that you cause hurricanes in order to attack and punish cities that have fallen into sin.

So, every mornig during hurricane season, I do a trademarked segment called Action News 5 Sin Watch. People call in from different cities and towns along the Gulf Coast in the region, reporting sins around where they live. We rate those sins on a scale from 1 to 10, and then create a Sinzone Action Hurricane Warning Map, showing where hurricanes are most likely to hit.

Now, my boss says I’m wrong about all this. He says that hurricanes are natural occurrences that result from the force generated by warm oceans between the coast of Africa and the Caribbean Sea.

Who is right?

- Raymond

Raymond,

You are absolutely correct. I do punish sinful cities with hurricanes.

For example, in a week and a half, I’m going to send a hurricane to Miami in order to punish a Big Truck conference they’re having there on Father’s Day this weekend. Global warming is serious stuff, and big trucks that guzzle gasoline and pump out greenhouse gases conspicuously and purposefully contribute to the problem.

It’s a sin, and oh, boy are they going to pay for it.

- God

Dear God,

I was looking at the Sistine Chapel the other day, and I noticed that one of the pictures shows your ass. It was in very good shape considering that you have been around for an eternity. Do you work out?

- Benedict

Benedict,

I’m glad that you asked. People think that I get enough of a workout doing my job: Moving mountains, setting planets in motion and all that. But the truth is that most of my work is sedentary. You wouldn’t believe the amount of time I spend just listening to people praying for stuff that they want, or processing confessions. Believe me, it’s a lot of paperwork.

I’m on a couple of different programs. One is called the Blind Faith Diet. I can eat anything, but I have to have my eyes closed. I figure that, since I’m omnipresent and I am in everything, it’s all cannibalism to me, but what the Hell.

The other program I’m on is the Eternal Abs Exercise Program. You know how they have 7 Minute Abs? Well, the problem, if you’re an immortal like myself, is that 7 minutes isn’t really very long. The Eternal Abs Program overcomes that issue because it works on a truly cosmic timescale.

- God

Dear God,

I have been thinking about it for some time now, and have decided that I would like to have a personal relationship with Jesus. The trouble is, I really don’t know how to go about establishing this relationship. Do you have any advice for me?

- Marvin

Marvin,

I really don’t know how to put this to you, but the fact is that Jesus is already spoken for. Jesus has been in a committed relationship with Isis for almost two thousand years now, and to be honest, I just don’t see them breaking up any time soon.

I would be less direct in my answer to you, but I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life waiting in vain.

Also, my earthly publicists also tell me that I am against same-sex romantic relationships, though I can’t remember ever saying so. It’s Leviticus something or other, I think.

It just so happens that there is a nice single young woman living right down the street from you. Would you like me to set you up on a blind date?

Best luck,

God

Dear God,

I am having a theological dispute with a friend of mine. We both agree that it was you, God, who wrote the Bible. What we disagree about is how you wrote the Bible.

I say that you either wrote the Bible with a pen or a pencil. I’m leaning toward the pen, because you seem like the kind of person who would be able to compose in your head before you actually commit a thought to writing. Also, I just can’t believe that you would write the Bible in pencil, because, after all, what would the theological implications of you needing to erase be? Would that imply that God wrote a first draft of the Bible? Would then the initial thoughts you had be more valid than the second draft , or would it be the other way around?

My friend says that you probably used a word processor, but I say that’s not possible because word processors were not invented until many thousands of years after you began writing the Bible. My friend says that doesn’t matter, because with you all things are possible.

Then I said to him, well, if all things are possible, how do we know that God didn’t write the Bible with a penguin?

So, God, can you help us to settle this dispute? What did you write the Bible with?

- Alonso

Alonso,

You are not far from the truth. I did write the Bible using an animal as a writing implement, but it was not the penguin, because the penguin’s beak is too sharp, and was always piercing my paper.

I wrote the Bible with an okapi. The okapi, as you may know, is a rare relative of the giraffe that lives in the dark forests of Africa.

I would take my okapi every morning, just after breakfast, and dip it in ink, and start writing on my giant scrolls on Mount Fuji.

My choice of the okapi is really just aesthetic. Using an okapi just makes me feel more authorly, if you know what I mean.

- God

Dear God,

My husband is an avid player of the video game Civilization III. He doesn’t pay attention to me any more. He’s always saying something to me like, “Just give me one more minute! I’ve almost vanquished the Greeks!”

He won’t even come to bed with me any more. He stays up half the night, and from the next room, I have to hear him muttering things like, “I can’t believe that the Aztecs just built the Pyramids. I almost had them done!”

So, God, I want to know who to blame. Did you design this Civilization video game, or was it Satan?

- Odette

Odette,

You can blame it on me. The code for Civilization III is divinely inspired.

You’ve heard the Catholics talk about natural family planning? Well Civilization is information technology family planning.

Have you thought of taking on a technophobe lover?

- God

Dear God,

I was listening to the Randi Rhodes show today on Air America Radio, and she was talking about how there have been some revelations about how George W. Bush had a homosexual relationship with the mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee and Ambassador to Poland, Victor Ashe.

Since I heard the show, I’ve done a bit of researching around the web, and found many claims about an organization named Gay Ivy Leaguers for Truth, which includes 29 graduates from Yale who all know about George W. Bush’s younger days as a gay man. On the other hand, I’ve also found a web site that says that the Gay Ivy Leaguers for Truth are a hoax, but that site cites another site that is now offline.

Well, how do we know which story about George W. Bush’s sexual history is true?

- Gertrude

Gertrude,

You don’t. You just have to have faith.

You know, pray on it.

Feel your way around, in the dark, blindly, just hoping that you get it right, trusting that there is some kind of cosmic force guiding you in the proper direction, without having any reason to have such trust.

I know, I know, it’s an odd way of doing things. But, that’s how my holy book bestseller is written, and who am I to contradict the word of God?

Well, I am God. But that’s a theological mystery for another time: What happens when God contradicts God? Hmmm…..

- God