Advice From God

Dear God,

Author James Haught writes that faith is fading in America.

How could this happen? The coins in the USA read “In God We Trust”! Isn’t that enough proof that America is still devoted to you, God? Why are you allowing faith to fade in our country?

- Delores

Delores,

It’s true. I am allowing faith to fade in the United States. Don’t fear, though. It is all part of The Plan.

By enabling the faithful to fade, they can become more stealthy, walking through crowds unseen. Faded Christian believers will be able to act as perfect spies, sneaking into the offices of the Secular Coalition for America to see what sorts of nefarious non-religiosity these infidels will be up to next.

It’s just another step toward the End Times, Dolores, so go along with my plan. Christianity is going covert, with invisible prayer warriors!

- God

Dear God,

This week, Daniel Couglin, the official priest of the U.S. House of Representatives, offered the following statement in prayer: “Sometimes You may draw back from our momentary attention just to make us pray all the more ardently and increase our desire for Your presence or refine our request.”

I don’t understand this statement. How can withdrawing from people’s attention cause people to pray more ardently for you? Why would you run away from the people who worship you?

- Sam

Sam,

It’s all part of my Divine Plan ™. I chose to create the human soul in such a way that it would only pay attention to me when I am running away from the attention of humans. See, if people are paying attention to me, they start to take me for granted. That’s why I choose to help people forget me, so that they stop paying attention to me, and thus reach into a higher relationship with me.

If that doesn’t make sense, think about it in terms of supernatural dating. If you have a new girlfriend, don’t call her this Friday evening. Instantly, she’ll become more attractive to you. Basically, I’m playing hard to get with the human race. By making it seem that I don’t exist or don’t care, I get people praying that I’ll just pay them the slightest bit of attention.

It gratifies my vanity, and if you’re a divine being like me, vanity is bread and butter.

- God

Dear God,

A memo was recently sent to priests in the Diocese of Westminster, which warned of the spread of the swine flu virus through the act of holy communion, citing, “the risk of contaminating the minister’s hands and chalice during communion with respiratory secretions and passing these on directly into other peoples’ mouths.”

This has me worried. If priests and parishoners are passing the h1n1 swine flu virus back and forth to each other through the wafer and wine of the communion ritual, that’s dangerous enough for them. However, no one seems to be considering the risk to Jesus!

After all, through the ritual of communion, the wafer becomes the body of Jesus, and the wine becomes the blood of Jesus. If someone infected with h1n1 were to take part in communion, they could smear swine flu all over Jesus’s body and pass the virus directly into Jesus’s bloodstream.

In these circumstances, the continuation of communion could prove to be the death of Jesus! What can we do to stop this disaster?

- Bennie

Bennie,

While I share some of your concerns, I think that it is important to remember that Jesus is already dead. However, that doesn’t mean that he can’t get a nasty case of the sniffles.

So, I suggest that all parishoners sip some cold and cough syrup before they take part in communion. Some of the medicine will enter the blood of Jesus by way of backwash, and dull the symptoms of swine flu.

- God

Dear God,

I’m not sure how to go about contacting you. Do you have an email to which your flock can submit questions? I am concerned and seek your advice. What are the chances that I will return as a zombie when I die?

- Green Ninja

Green Ninja,

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you already are a zombie. Haven’t you noticed feeling a little bit tired recently? You’re not aging so much as decomposing. You died about ten years ago, and came back as a zombie.

You needn’t worry about it too much. There’s still a great deal that you can achieve as a zombie. Take a look at my son Jesus as an example. Did he let death get him down? Well, yes, I guess he did, but just for a few days, but then he got back on his feet and kept on trying.

Good luck, and as for contacting me, well, that’s what the comment feature after each piece of advice is for. Let me know if you need any more words of wisdom.

- God

Dear God,

Who has seen the wind?

- Humphrey

Humphrey,

On the southwest coast of France, there is a small beach resort community called Contis-Plage. About 5 kilometers inland from there along the Allee du Pont Rose, there is another town, less visited, named Contis-Les-Marais. There is a road there, just outside the eastern end of town, that leads to the southeast. One kilometer along that road, in the Foret Domaniale De Lit-et-Mixe, there is a giant oak tree, broken in half.

Walk to the side of the tree away from the road, and you will see a little door in the side of the tree. Behind that door is the home of a gnome named Clive, an immigrant from Cornwall.

He has seen the wind.

- God

Dear God,

I need to buy a birthday gift for a friend, but I don’t know what to get. What do you suggest?

- Edward

Edward,

Buy your friend a box of paper clips. Buy a thumbtack. Buy a set of 3 rolls of masking tape – one very wide, one not so wide, and one very narrow indeed. But a stick of chewing gum. Buy a hammer. Buy a nail.

Buy anything, but wrap it up in paper, tie it up with a bow, and write a note on the outside with the one-word message: “Sincerely”.

- God

Dear God,

Why did you design the octopus with eight arms? Wouldn’t four arms have been just as effective? Couldn’t you gave gone to ten arms, as long as you were going for a big quantity?

- Jean-Jacques

Jean-Jacques,

The octopus has eight arms because it’s called the octopus. Duh. Oct means eight, you know.

Look, you’re not a deity, so you don’t understand how this works. First, you name the animal. Then you create it. So, I named the animal the octopus, and then I had to give it eight legs.

Same thing with the centipede. I named it the centipede, and then I had to give it 100 legs.
Yes, I know – centipedes don’t really have 100 legs. That’s because of Satan, who keeps on trying to make me look bad. He knocked some of the centipede’s legs off. He said it was for the sake of efficiency.

Efficiency is the devil’s tool.

- God

Dear God,

I was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. When I asked my oncologist what could be done, he just said, “Nothing.” I asked him how he knew there was nothing to be done, how he could give up without trying. He just shrugged his shoulders and walked out of the room. I had to get dressed and walk myself back out to the front office and pay for the visit without anything more than that.

What am I supposed to do now?

- Barry

Barry,

There is nothing that you’re supposed to do. You have stepped outside of the realm of supposition and social order. You have a fatal illness, and the medical profession appears to have abandoned you. As far as they’re concerned, you’re already dead.

You can go to another doctor, of course, and see if you’ll get another opinion. You might not get another opinion, however. You might just get another oncologist who gives you the same opinion, although it’s delivered in a less brutal form.

More fundamentally, you have to deal with the crisis that all people will have to deal with, although most people forget about it. You are going to die. Maybe you won’t die today, or tomorrow, or this week, or this year, but you will die eventually. There is no cure for mortality.

Why must it be this way? Well, actually it doesn’t have to be this way at all. Human beings could be immortal, if I chose to allow it. However, I chose to create people as mortal beings. That way, there would be more turnover, and more interesting plot developments in the soap operas.

Don’t blame your oncologist for it. Blame me.

- God

Dear God,

Although I am 32 years old, I am new to the kitchen, having gone out to eat at restaurants for most of my life. I am just now learning to bake, and have gotten my first can of baking powder ever.

Something about this baking powder confuses me, however. It says on the package that it is “double acting”. Does that mean that I should use half of what a recipe calls for, when I use this baking powder?

- Darnice

Darnice,

Congratulations on your foray into the kitchen.

No, you should not use half the amount of double acting baking powder. Use the same amount as you would if you were using plain old baking powder.
The phrase “double acting” does not refer to any kind of extra power to make cookies rise in the oven. Instead, double acting baking powder actually has a second function – a sacred function.

Not only does double acting baking powder help delicious deserts get all puffy in the oven, but it also serves as an excellent agent for casting out demons. When you don’t have any holy water handy, and demons are pestering you and preventing you from making the evening meal with their infernal hijinks, get out your double acting baking powder and throw it around your kitchen.

If you don’t believe me, I suggest that you look at the packaging for your baking powder. The FDA requires that all double acting baking powder be packaged with the following advisory: Double Acting Baking Powder uses a variety of antidemonic leavening agents in combination with the pulverized bones of the saints. Do not put in the microwave, as hellfire may ensue.

- 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 in 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 of luck to you,
God