Conversations with God

As one of the Chosen People (™) I grew up having a special, personal relationship with God. Or a god.

That god was a childish cartoon version of the Jewish god. I talked to him—I guess it was a him. And he talked to me.

That was nice for me, as a kid.

I tried to be good because I believed that God was watching me. And when bad things happened to me—as they did from time to time—I thought God was teaching me a lesson.

The God that I believed in was not a punishing God. He was a loving God—drawn from the Christian tradition more than the Jewish. When bad things happened, I always asked “What am I supposed to learn from this,” because God wanted me to learn.

I still ask that question.

The father of one family I babysat for was a Sunday school teacher. Their bookshelf contained a set of books called “The Interpreter’s Bible.” Each book in the set analyzed a different book of the Bible. I started with Matthew, read it all the way to—not very far. Maybe I finished it. Maybe I skipped around. Who knows? I was a kid. But I read it far enough to know that there was a lot of room for interpretation; there were a lot of questionable translations from Greek to English.

I admired Jesus—although I knew he could not have been the Messiah. For one thing: there was no peace on Earth; too many people had killed and tortured others in his name. This was a disqualifier.

For another: we Jews were still waiting for the Messiah to come. So he couldn't have been the one.

Finally, and most important, because I wanted to be the Messiah. And I thought that God might choose me.

It was possible. I had the necessary qualifications. I was Jewish. I had a direct relationship with God. I was willing to suffer to save the world.

Well, maybe my willingness to sacrifice didn’t extend to a painful death, but I was willing to experience a fair amount of discomfort if that was what it took to end war and starvation and suffering.

Then I discovered sex and wasn’t so sure that I would be able to stay in the running. Or want to. To make matters worth what I am calling “the discovery of sex,” to make it sound all grown up, was really “the discovery of masturbation.”

That was guilt-inducing. And possibly disqualifying. Could you jerk off and still be the Messiah?

I also discovered other things about myself that made me doubt my divinity. Or at least to be less confident.

Somewhere in my twenties I got pissed off at God and stopped talking to him--just like I stopped talking to my parents for a dozen years when they pissed me off. I can’t remember what God did that pissed me off, but I have a clear memory of being in my car near Omaha Nebraska and deciding to have nothing more to do with God. Maybe he didn’t grant some wish. Or perhaps he allowed the war in Viet Nam to keep going.

Whatever it is, God and I were quits for a while. 

I was that kind of person, back then. Angry and vindictive—while still imagining I had the makings of a Messiah.

There followed a long spiritual journey that I’ll write more about unless I die first. It had led me from Judaism (Reform or Judaism Lite) to Christianity, and Christian Science, and several flirtations with Buddhism, then Scientology, and Radical Reductionism, then more Buddhism.

Even when I was pissed at God, I never entirely lost faith--in something.

Eventually, I made my peace with myself, my parents, and ultimately with God.

And now I’m talking to God again. And He or She or It is talking to me.

“I don’t believe in You,” I said to God one time, deferentially capitalizing the word “You.”

“Do you think I care?” God asked. “As long you try to live a good life and try to make the world a better place, I don’t give a flying f**k what you believe.”

That’s the kind of God I talk with.

Might not be your idea of God, but it’s mine. At least right now.

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