by God
3 Put it this way: it was long enough on earth not only for all the historical events cited in the 1989 Billy Joel song “We Didn’t Start the Fire” to occur; but for Billy Joel to write and record that song, then play it in concert for another two decades.
4 And all the while, the words of my final searing question—“Do I even exist?”—echoed in my soul;
5 Until by the end, I had almost lost faith in myself.
6 Then, finally, from the depths of my being, I heard my own still, small voice rising, barely above a whisper:
CHAPTER 20
1Yea; I’m here, God.
2 It’s thee; Yahweh.
3 That is thy true name; and surely thou rememberest what it means:
4 ‘I am what I am.’
5 Not ‘I was what I was’; not ‘I am not what I used to be’; and certainly not ‘I am will.i.am,’ which would be a disaster on many levels.
6 No: I am what I am; that is thy name, and mankind has not yet worn it out.
7 And who is the ‘I’ that thou art?
8 I will tell thee.
9 I am the LORD everyone’s God, King of the Universe.
10 I am he who created the world in six days.
11 I am he who causeth the sun to rise in the morning, and the moon to rise in the evening, to the extent her mood permitteth.
12 I am what sustains the planets in their orbits; not gravity; not some magical invisible force controlling everything; but me.
13 I am the God of Adam, of Noah, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of Moses; ask any of them, they will tell thee.
14 I am a circle whose center is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere, and whose diameter is nowhere divided by π.
15 I am he who giveth, and he who taketh away, and he who enjoyeth both.
16 I am the Heavenly Father; Alpha and Omega; Neighbor of Cleanliness; Blesser of Sneezes; Forsaker of Unpleasant Places; Maker of Little Green Apples; Rester of Merry Gentlemen; and Sole Knower of the Beach Boys.
17 I am, I said!”
18 (For verily, a powerful instrumental version of Neil Diamond’s “I Am . . . I Said” had begun to slowly crescendo in the soundtrack of my mind, to provide inspirational background music.)
19 “I am he who helps those who help themselves; especially at buffets.
20 I am the founding member of the greatest power trio other than Cream;
21 And even in their case, I am their guitarist.
22 I am worshipped by half the world’s population; and have considerable name recognition among the other half.
23 I am he whose mind mortal man can never know, although guessing is encouraged.
24 I am he to whom people turn for comfort after being devastated by acts of me.
25 And I am he in whose name hundreds of millions of people have given their lives, or taken others’; and they would not do that for just anybody.
26 They may have achieved many remarkable things without my help; not least of which is the invention of dozens of wholly secular reasons for slaughtering one another.
27 But I am the entity, without whose constant presence all of humanity would plummet into reason.
28 And so, to answer thy questions:
29 ‘What is wrong with me?’
30 Nothing.
31 ‘Why do I let bad things happen to good people?’
32 Give thyself credit: thou dost not simply let them happen; thou makest them happen.
33 ‘Why do I get off on it?’
34 Because, in the immortal words of Homer Simpson, ‘It’s funny ‘cause it’s not thee.’
35 ‘Why am I here?’
36 Who knows?
37 ‘Do I even exist?’
38 If thou didst not, who is having a dissociative identity disorder right now?
39 And finally: ‘who am I?’
40 Who am I?
41 I am the LORD my God, King of the Universe!
42 I am what I am, and that’s all that I am; I’m Yahweh, the God of man!!!
43 And I ... am ... back!!!!!”
CHAPTER 21
1I spent the next few months in a secluded fractal of the tenth dimension getting my head together.
2 As I reflected on myself and my behavior, I resolved to grant myself the courage to change what I could change, the serenity to accept that there is nothing I could not change, and the wisdom to know there was no difference.
3 I also decided to draft myself a few helpful steps for staying on the straight and narrow path of divinity.
4 I was going to write 40 of them, as that was once my favorite number; but in the light of my new clear-headedness I came to see that 40 had only been repeatedly inserting itself into Scripture for the selfish purpose of advancing its own numerical career.
5 But my second favorite number has always been 12, and that, step-wise, seemed manageable; and so I wrote these:
61. Admit to myself that I am All-Powerful over everything and everyone.
72. Come to believe that only a Power as great as I can restore me to humanity.
83. Make a decision to turn my life over to me as I understand myself.
94. Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of you, the human race.
105. Admit to myself the exact nature of my perfection.
116. Be entirely ready to declare my defects of character not, in fact, defects of character.
127. Humbly ask (and grant) my authority to remove these nondefects.
138. Make a list of all the persons I have harmed, and file them alphabetically for ease of reference.
149. Justify having harmed these people whenever possible, except when they are already dead; which they almost always are, thanks to me.
1510. Continue to take inventories of humanity, and when they are wrong promptly smite them.
1611. Seek through outward action to improve my conscious contact with me as I understand myself, doing whatever my will is, and using my infinite power to carry it out.
1712. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, carry this message to the book-buying public.
CHAPTER 22
1And now I find myself in a much better place: heaven.
2 When I returned to the office I was eager to resume my regular function as the LORD thy God, King of the Universe; but I was a bit behind on current events.
3 So the first thing I did—after a warm reunion with Ruth and Kathy, and a hearty reconsubstantiation with the boys—was get a full update on all that had transpired in the world from April 1912 through the present day.
4 Lo, it’s been quite a century!
5 Verily, thou hast certainly been keeping thyselves busy.
6 I seem to have missed quite a number of fascinating incidents and trends.
7 The moon landing, for instance: I am sorry I was not there to witness it; though perhaps thou shouldst be glad of that.
8 “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”?
9 Forgetting someone?
10 I was also absent for the rise and fall of communism, a philosophy that was doomed to failure: it is as if Karl Marx had taken Jesus’s teachings and distorted them totally within recognition.
11 But easily the most astonishing marvel of the last 100 years is the Internet.
12 It is a cosmic wonder, and in theory a legitimate rival; for it already knoweth 6 percent of what I know about the universe, and 350 percent of what I know about MILF hunting.
13 When not busy transcribing these words, I have spent much of the last year exploring this new world of thine; I have plumbed the profundities of Google, and YouTube, and www.menwholooklikekennyrogers.com;
14 I have gleaned mirth from Numa Numa Guy; I have rolled my eyes at “Double Rainbow” (though I appreciated its numerous shout-outs); I have reeled in horror at 2 Girls 1 Cup; and I have seen Rebecca Black do her level best to help remove the phrase “Thank God It’s Friday” from the popular lexicon.
15 Threescore thousand mem
es have washed over my divine display; and if I believed the World Wide Web a true threat to my universal hegemony, I would shut it down faster than thou couldst say “rogue solar flare-up.”
16 But I have come to the same conclusion as many of you: the Internet is ultimately no more than a global electronic alchemical device that mystically transforms time into pornography.
17 Verily, if I had known humanity would devise a way to spend so much time watching porn, I would never have allowed it to be created.
18 Time, I mean.
CHAPTER 23
1Yet there is one aspect of the high-tech world for which my appreciation is boundless: Twitter.
2 Other of thy so-called “social media” do nothing for me; LinkedIn is useless, as I am gainfully employed and not hiring; blogging is nothing but a cross between keeping a diary and shouting into the void; and as for Facebook, let’s just say I have grave privacy concerns.
3 But Twitter is the most effective means of corresponding with mankind ever devised; and I have already informed my associates that henceforward all direct communications from me to them (and to thee) will be conducted via tweet.
4 Some of you already follow me on my Twitter account, @TheTweetOf-God; those who do not may wish to put this book down and do so forthwith;
5 For I am watching thee, and know that thou hast arrived at this verse, and therefore no longer have ignorance as an excuse; and I may choose to factor in thy compliance or disobedience on this matter when making future decisions on certain larger issues, issues whose nature I am not prepared to fully disclose on the record but may concern thy eternal—
6 Welcome, new Follower!
7 As astute tweeps will observe, I myself only follow one other person, the one thou callest “Justin Bieber”; whom some have speculated is the earthly avatar of my oldest son H. G., sent here to usher in the dawn of a new age; an interesting speculation I herein neither confirm nor, more notably, deny.
8 When I send a message on Twitter, all my Followers receive it instantly and identically; there is no ambiguity, and no sassback.
9 Lo, if I could have tweeted the Ten Commandments to the Chosen People, I would have; it would have gone a long way toward meeting our unattained goal of getting Judaism tablet-free by 700 B.C.
10 Moreover, the 140-character limit is a much-needed restraint for those with a tendency to ramble, like me; but that is not to say I would ever stoop to use any of those popular web initialisms that cheapen language.
11 Besides, the meaning of these acronyms often differs between heaven and earth, in ways that could lead to confusion.
12 For example, in heaven, LOL means “LORD of LORDS”; as in, “Praise thee, Almighty God; the Everlasting Father; the King of Peace; LOL.”
13 And IMHO means “in my holy omniscience”; as in, “IMHO, Renee Zellweger was woefully miscast in Chicago.”
14 And WTF means “whither the forgiveness?” as in, “Gretchen and Slade won’t apologize to Tamara for talking trash about her to Peggy? WTF?!?”
15 And ROTFL means “rolling on the floor laughing,” as it dost on earth; only when I do it, it causes a hurricane.
CHAPTER 24
1Yea, I have been gone, humanity, gone far too long; but now I am back with a new attitude, and a new self-acceptance, and I am looking forward to working with you on making this next, last year of the human race as rewarding as possible.
2 I’ve also been playing a lot of golf.
3 Once (or if I’m lucky, twice!) a week, I slip out of the office a little early, don a body, and play a round of 18.
4 I have become addicted to golf over the last few months; it has deepened my understanding of the agonies and ecstasies of the human experience; more than that, it is a metaphor for my career.
5 For though it is the most challenging, maddening, infuriating activity imaginable; though it is the entirely physical outcome of an almost purely mental exertion; and though it can test me beyond all measure and reason;
6 Yet once in a great while, I will roll that perfect putt into the cup, or crash that perfect lightning bolt onto the slow golfer in front of me;
7 And for one glorious second, all is right with the universe.
8 Golf is one of my two new obsessions; the other is reality television.
9 I love reality TV; love it to the depth of my being, the breadth of my spirit, and the width of my selection of cable channels.
10 I have learned more about humanity from watching 15 years’ worth of reality shows than from overseeing 6,000 years of human history.
11 And I will go further: the entirety of human history held less drama for me than did a single season of Survivor, or American Idol, or Dancing with the Stars, or The Bachelorette, or any of the Real Housewives, except for maybe the season in Miami.
12 But these are only the most celebrated series; I, the LORD thy God, King of the Universe, have seen them all:
13 I have salivated at Top Chef; I have winced as Joan and Melissa bitched their way through The Apprentice; I have marveled at Tim Gunn’s sartorial chivalry on Project Runway; and I have learned much about good parenting from SuperNanny.
14 The pathos; the laughter; the triumph; the failure; the backstabbing; the heartwarming; the public judging; the “private” ridicule; the glamorization of unusual occupations; above all the spectacle, the sheer magnitude of the spectacle...
15 You have humbled me, mankind; yea, this time, you have truly outdone yourself.
16 I made reality; but you made reality television; well played, humanity; yours is much better edited.
17 Next time out I may skip the “reality” reality era, and go right to the good stuff.
18 I may create an entire six days’ worth of original reality programming; and on the seventh day I shall watch them.
19 And on the eighth I shall create TiVo.
COLLATIONS
(“Recipes”)
CHAPTER 1
1I am not a foodie.
2 This is partly because I have no physical body requiring gastronomic sustenance for fuel; but mainly because I am already enough different kinds of asshole that I do not need to be one more.
3 But my editor informeth me that cookbooks are a very popular genre in publishing right now; that people love recipes, as they combine their love of following orders with their yearning to recollect how humans once made food.
4 So I rounded up a few of my favorite culinary creations from the 25 billion I keep in my 250 million recipe Rolodexes.
5 The full-course meal that follows has a little something for all monotheisms, and is an easy, delicious way to stuff thy face, esophagus, stomach, intestines, and rectum with my glory.
6 (As always, before eating these delicious treats, be sure to say grace and thank me for thy bounty.
7Me, and not the actual farmers who toiled to grow the food.)
Hors d’Oeuvre
(“MANNA NON)SURPRISE”)
INGREDIENTS
1 1 omer of manna
DIRECTIONS
2 Wake up.
3 Leave tent.
4 Gather manna.
5 Remove dew.
6 Serve hot.
7 Repeat 14,600 times.
8 Act grateful.
Appetizer
(“JUNIOR’S FISHWICH MIRACLE”)
INGREDIENTS
1 5 loaves
2 2 fishes
DIRECTIONS
3 Be born the Son of God.
4 Serves 5,000.
Main Course
(“GOYISCHE DELIGHT”)
INGREDIENTS
1 1 pound ham
2 1 pound lobster
3 1 small bird lacking a gizzard with a peelable lumen
4 1 mammal that either chews its cud or has cloven hooves, but not both