A Letter to the Editor

9/7/2004

Dear People of Earth,

This is God speaking. It has been a while since I’ve chatted with you, but I feel the time has come to once again try to reason with you. St. Peter convinced Me to send this message using E-Mail to the editor of this pathetic rag. Please forgive Me any faux pax, as I don’t speak the lingo very well yet. I will just try to do the best I can. St. Peter tells Me that I simply must learn how to use this god-forsaken computer. It’s the latest thing. He tells Me that tablets of stone and burning bushes just don’t carry the message the way they used to. I cannot compete on a visual level with the computer generated graphics they’re churning out in Hollywood these days. A shame. It used to be that all I had to do was part the seas and voila, problem solved.

I’ve come to believe that people should direct their own lives. After all, that’s why I invented Free Will in the first place. I’ve tried to delegate, honestly I have. If I had to straighten out every little mess, I simply would not have any time at all to myself. I have started taking great delight in crocheting, and find it taking more and more of My leisure time. Here I am, in My golden years, and I should be resting from My labors. But I cannot rest with what is going on out there. In My younger years, I might have smote the whole lot of you. But, I find that smiting is just not very much fun anymore. I used to take great pleasure in flinging fire and brimstone this way and that, but nowadays I find myself getting irritated when I find ash all over My nice white robes.

You may think it is easy being Creator of the Universe. Let Me tell you, it is anything but. No sooner do I get a nice patch of rain forest put up, than a bunch of developers come along and burn it down. There goes My summer place. I may be the Creator of the Universe, but I’m not omniscient. I cannot be everywhere at once. This world should run itself; that’s how I designed it. And yet you people expect Me to somehow patch things up when a few crosses burn in Alabama, when a few school buses explode in Tel Aviv, when a few children starve in Ethiopia.

I must say that I am not very pleased. Not very pleased at all. I have half a mind to tear it down and start all over again. I shall take no pleasure in it, but do you think I wouldn’t do it? I’ve done it before, many times. Forget arks and floods, that’s so passé. I don’t need St. Peter to tell Me that. I can fling a comet in any time I want to and wipe you all out. I did it with the dinosaurs. I thought Triceratops was the loveliest of all My creations, but I just had to let them go. I had to make room for the next step in evolution. Yes, you heard right, I said evolution. How do you think I get things done? You think I just wave My hands and say “Let there be light”? I wish it was that simple. No, I’ve put a lot of hard work into My creations.

So it upsets Me to no end to see what My creations are doing to themselves, to each other, and to My other creations. I put a lot of sweat into this Universe. I had hoped to retire soon and hand the reins over to My young protégé. Alas, I fear he has not yet recovered from the stress of the field work I had him do a couple of millennia ago. Stress that you had a hand in producing, I might add. Being crucified can take a lot out of a man. He’ll eventually recover, but until then I simply cannot let things go. On the other hand, this enterprise is not going in the direction I intended. Therefore, I felt I must get this message out to you all. Things simply cannot continue the way they are at present.

Israel, you are not My chosen people. I don’t choose people. Perish the thought. Yeah, okay, you people have suffered, but who hasn’t? Get over it. I do not play favorites. The Palestinians are equal to you any day of the week. They are not your slaves. They have just as much right to a homeland as you do. You have achieved your homeland, now give them theirs; give them back the land that you stole from them. It is really that simple. Get rid of that freakin’ wall, people. Okay, build it if you must, but build it inside your own borders, and don’t cut off people from their livelihoods. By the way, please stop firing rockets at people in Gaza. You’re not accomplishing anything except killing innocents. Ariel Sharon, who the hell do you think you are? Are you playing God? Stop building those settlements on land that does not belong to you.

Palestinians, I am not on your side. I don’t choose sides. Do you think the Infantada impresses Me in the least? Do you think it impresses anyone? I am not impressed when you send young people with bomb belts to kill other young people. I happen to like young people. Some of My best friends are young people. Yassir Arafat, who the hell do you think you are, God or something? You have straddled the fence for far too long, merely to consolidate your political position. Make peace, and make it quickly, or your people will lose patience with you and turn you into a martyr. Martyrs are much more useful to people when they are dead, believe Me. While you’re at it, get rid of Hamas. Tell them to start making something useful besides bombs.

America, I do not bless you. I don’t bless nations of men. You have grown far too arrogant, and you express dismay when the world rebels at that arrogance. There is only one superpower in this world, baby, and it is not you. Stop thinking you can go it alone. You cannot. Your fabled commercial empire crumbles around you, and yet you insist that you can get by without your friends and allies of old. Are you freakin’ blind and deaf? George W. Bush, who the hell do you think you are? Do you think you’re God or something? Do you really think you can start a war on a false premise, alienate your friends, bomb innocent people, and sink your country into another quagmire? Do you really think of this as a, ahem, miscalculation? Are you freakin’ insane? Give it up, George. You cannot create peace from war.

Radical Islamic clerics, yes I am great, but I am not impressed with your false praise. You are corrupting your great faith. You are turning the teachings of My good friend Mohammed into a perversion. Moqtada Sadr, just who the hell do you think you are? Do you think you’re God or something? I thought Khomeini was a wacko fruitcake, but you take the cake hands down. Do you realize how many young men you’ve led to pointless deaths, just so you could demonstrate how politically viable you are? Turn your popularity into a force for rebuilding your war-torn land. That is the only way you’re going to get the occupiers out of your country, by demonstrating that your country can stand on its own.

Russia, just give it up. Let Chechnya go. They don’t want you. You don’t need them. It is not worth it. Valerie Putin, just who the hell do you think you are? You are holding on to a ghost, you are clinging to a lost empire, you are grasping after vanished straws, when you should be rebuilding your country.

Chechnya, shame on you. How dare you take school children as hostages? My partner Mr. Moloch has reserved a special place in his domain for the likes of you. There is a table in his great hall just waiting for you. You cannot miss it. It is next to the table with the placards for Osama Bin Laden and Timothy McVeigh. Mr. Moloch’s chief cook has his tray of just desserts waiting for you all. May you feast for eternity.

France and Germany, stop your orchestration of the world’s politics and economy. I am the only maestro here, not you. You stand there in your moral indignation; while even from way up here I can see your eyes flashing Euro signs as America flails itself to death. Stop fighting against George W. Bush, and instead talk some sense into the man. You could accomplish so much in your position. You could save the world. But you squander the opportunity, and instead dream your dreams of new colonialism. It will not happen. You will become the next Great Satan.

Well, I guess I’ve had My say. Consider yourselves warned. People of Earth, fix yourselves. Don’t make me come down there. You don’t want Me stepping in, believe Me. I will f**k you up so badly you will never recover. You will lose your place, and cockroaches will inherit the Earth. I won’t lose a moment of sleep. I’ll be busy starting over. I’ve got a nice little startup just coming online over at Beta Centauri. I’m developing some cool new ideas. We’ll be going public in a couple of centuries, and if there’s anything left over on Earth, we’ll gobble it up so quickly there won’t be anything left, not even the cockroaches.

Thank you for your attention,

Yours Truly,

God