Dear God,

What was the prophet Malachi writing about when he warned the nation of Israel, “Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it.”

- Agatha

Agatha,

This text is commonly misunderstood as a rebuke to the nation of Israel. That’s not at all the case. I had instructed the prophet Malachi to reward the nation of Israel with a rollocking drunken sex orgy.

Just take a look at the text. You have to understand, this was around the time of the Roman Empire, when the world really knew how to have a good time. I was the life of the party myself every now and then, I can tell you. You know what we used to say about the prophet Malachi? We used to say that if you could remember being around the prophet Malachi, that was a sign you had never really been around the prophet Malachi. Know what I mean?

The text you cite refers to one day when I sent Malachi to some of the high priests of the nation of Israel, and told them to get ready for a really big party. The whole corrupting of seed, well, that was all about this certain sexual position we used to have back then. You got down on all fours, and raised one knee as high as you could, and then the woman comes in from behind, you see. We called that position The Corrupt Seed. It was sort of the Tantric Sex of Judea.

As for the rest, well, I was just telling the priests that they were all really going to get shit-faced at the party, and so they might want to cancel their appointments for the next day.

Let me tell you, at that party, we certainly did get taken away with it. Why do you think they called me the Lord of Hosts? I really knew how to make my guests feel welcome, wink wink.

- God

Dear God,

I bought an iPhone earlier this summer, and paid, after taxes and all that, over six hundred dollars for it. Now, in September, Apple Computer is saying that it’s going to sell the iPhone for just four hundred dollars.

It’s like they charged me two hundred extra dollars, when they gave other people a special break? What do they have against me? How come I get all the bad luck?

What can I do to make this right? How can I get what I deserve?

- Seymour

Seymour,

I suggest that you take your case to the court of public opinion. You could start with the newspapers in New Orleans. Next, send letters to the editor of the papers in places like Bangladesh, Columbia, the Sudan and Iraq.

If you can only get the people of the world to understand your misery, I’m sure they will come rallying to your assistance.

- God

Dear God,

I have been following the career of Mike Gravel ever since he was a Senator from Alaska during the Vietnam War, and he read the Pentagon Papers into the public record, faced down President Nixon, and forced an end to the funding of the Vietnam War.

I support Mike Gravel’s campaign, but I can’t help noticing that Senator Gravel is not close to becoming the Democratic Party frontrunner.

I’m wondering what I can do to help Senator Gravel win the Democratic nomination, and the general presidential election in 2008. Do you have any advice?

- Nadia

Nadia,

I do have advice on this subject. As God, I am not only omnipresent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. I am also omniadvisorial.

A more interesting question is whether I am willing to share my advice for how to help Mike Gravel get elected as President. Lucky for you, I am in just such a mood.

It is very observant of you to notice that Mike Gravel’s campaign seems to be having a great deal of trouble. You should not feel bad for not being able to see what the problem is. You see, the problem is invisible.

Mike Gravel is cursed by an invisible demon named Deratianoo. Deratianoo is a mischevious demon who dedicates himself to the political destruction of political candidates. Whenever Mike Gravel gives a speech, Deratianoo runs around the room and whispers nasty things in the ears of the people, like “Mike Gravel smells” or “Mike Gravel has been caught eating human flesh”. People who hear these whispers do not remember them on a conscious level, but are nonetheless turned off, without knowing exactly why.

What you must do is break the curse of Deratianoo. Use a puppet.

Make a puppet that looks like Mike Gravel and hold a puppet news conference at which the puppet Mike Gravel announces to an assembly of puppet journalists that he is ending his presidential campaign. With any luck, Deratinoo will stop haunting Mike Gravel, and he will stand a chance of gaining the Democratic nomination.

- God

Dear God,

I don’t understand how you can give people Family Advice so freely, when you don’t have a family yourself. By what right do you claim to give this advice?

- Larissa

Larissa,

Larissa, like most people, you presume that I don’t have a family. I do have a family.

Take, for example, my brother Clyde. Poor Clyde has always been under tremendous pressure from our mother and father, and my father’s second wife Jeanne.

Clyde lives under my shadow, and it’s been pretty hard on him. My mother is always nagging him, though she thinks that she’s being encouraging.

“Why don’t you be more like your brother, God?” she says to him. “Look at God. He created the universe. Why don’t you try that?”

My mother doesn’t understand that Clyde just might create a universe, if only she would stop nagging him to do it. Nobody can create a universe under that kind of pressure.

Clyde wants to follow his own path, and live humbly, and just make fish. He made the coelocanth, for example, but when he showed that to our mother, she turned her nose up at it, and said, “Where’s the rest of it?” The coelocanth was so ashamed of itself that
it swam down to the deepest parts of the ocean, and was not seen again for a very long time.

I’ve got Clyde involved with a mentoring program through the United Way of Boston, and twice a week he goes and plays basketball. I’m not seeing that it’s doing him much good. I’d give him a job making galaxies if I didn’t think his pride would be hurt.

My point, Larissa, is that I know a lot about family problems. It’s because my family is so screwed up that I can give people like you advice about how to make your own family life better.

- God

Dear God,

What do you look like?

- Heather

Heather,

Imagine a beaver’s den, inside of which there is a disco ball, reflecting blue light out through gaps in the sticks, just before dawn. I look like a passing reindeer, surprised at such a sight, but in twenty three dimensions instead of the four dimensions you can see.

No, not really.  I’m kidding.  I’m about five foot eleven inches, with short brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard.  I have brown eyes, I think, but some women have told me that they’re hazel.  You might have seen me on the television in some work I do on the side as an actor in advertisements.  Currently, I’m promoting a denture cream.

- God