There are many ironies, some bitterer than others, that make me feel that God has a perverse sense of humor. My life is a study in God’s sick and twisted sense of humor. I am usually up for a good joke, but when my life is the context for that humor I have to cry foul.
Examples of some of God’s generic jokes:
- A man reaches his sexual zenith around 18 years of age, generally an age spent soiling sheets alone, when a woman reaches her zenith around 40;
- A platypus – a mammal that lays eggs and has a poison sting;
- Martyrdom of any stripe;
- Being fiercely attracted to a person that does not give a damn if you are alive;
- Being created sexual beings and attending churches that decry sexuality as sinful (OK, that one may be just plain human stupidity);
- So called acts of God;
- Hearing that God is a god of love while thousands starve and we continue to feed our faces as if there was no tomorrow and we are entitled to hoard all of earth’s resources (again, maybe just a case of human stupidity)
- Holy Wars; a contradiction in terms if ever there was one.
I was a Lutheran Pastor for more years than I like to think about. The funny thing is that the greatest critique that could be leveled against me was that I was firm in my adherence to the Lutheran confessions. God forbid that I be firmly part of a confessional movement within the church catholic, especially since I had taken vows to teach and preach in a manner that was congruous with the confessions. What makes an effective pastor anyway? Faithful service to God’s people or the generation of a membership list? Another subject for another blog, just suffice it to say that I came to the conclusion that the church was corrupt to the core and that I wanted nothing more to do with it. God may have loved a whore in the northern prophetic traditions; having lost two marriages to the church I was not ready to commit to a third. Faithless? A bitter question… who was faithless to whom? And what of God, anyway…
Sitting in MM’s hot-tub she asked if S and I had a good sex life. Yeah, we had a great sex-life. We made love several times a day. We just could not make it work with the pressures of my being the pastor and her past history of living in an addicted household. Good sex is not what makes a marriage last. Keeping faith with your partner is what makes any union last. S could not and would not commit. I did… my heart got broken by both the whoring Lutheran church and by S. There is another of God’s little jokes: being faithful to faithless lovers.
God does not play fair.
Look at the story of Israel who contended with the angel. The angel, tiring of the struggle broke Israel’s leg and left him permanently disabled, marred from having dared to dance with God. I, too, have contended with the divine and dare to say that God is unfair. But, in all fairness –that being a human trait, not a divine ideal – I have to note that God never promised fairness or even justice in this life, just the promise of justification by grace and the hope for a better world. God leaves being fair to us. The rat-bastard…
My fundamentalist friends would tell me that I risk hell-fire for that last paragraph. I would observe that my comments are not only soundly biblical, but mild by OT standards. I argue most with the people that I love… consider my anger at God as a family matter. Granted, we may not be on speaking terms, but I am certain that God is big enough to admit the wrong done to me and my children and put right what was damaged.
Life is one of God’s little jokes: we are young and have no idea what to do. We gain experience and vision, and by then we are too damn old to do a fuckin' thing about it; it seems we have two lives: the one we learn with and the one we live.
When I think about my relationship with MM I realize that we are already more married than most married couples. I have no need of a document to certify what already exists in our hearts. There is a depth to this loving tha far outpaces the time spent together. When we met it seemed clear that we would be together (I say "soulmates," she is reticent to use that word; my heart knows, though). I looked at her, she looked at me . Our eyes met with that clear and powerful gaze that said, "Oh, there you are... been looking for you; glad to have found you." It is still new, not yet six months old. I know that there is much to come. I dream of a day when we set up a home together and hope that it will be so, but not too soon. We have much to learn and have to establish a history together before that step can be taken. Maybe that is the redemption, the payback for all of God’s faithlessness?
God does not play fair; but I'm told God's promises are kept...
Ah, but I am just a fool.
