Being God

Well, brothers and sisters, this is something new to me: my very first Live Journal voice post. I’ve been delaying this, ‘cause I wasn’t sure what I should talk about. Many topics have been suggested to me, and while I appreciate all the input I do feel that my first voice post should be somehow special…personal, you know?

So, I’ve been looking for something important and serious, something poignant to talk about tonight, something that will change the lives of all who hear it. And I think I’ve found it in a momentous decision I’ve made recently: I have decided, brothers and sisters, that I should be God.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Oh, here’s another bleeding heart, gonna complain about all the injustice in the world.” Well, now, hold on, I’m not here to do that. Not that there isn’t injustice in the world…I mean it’s everywhere; in the first place, smokin’ and drinkin’ could certainly be less injurious to my health. A just God would pay more attention to things like that.

It’s pretty clear just overall that whoever’s in charge here, while clearly very creative, lacks certain… administrative skills, shall we say? It’s prob’ly time for a new hand to be on the joystick, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

But I’m not at all sure that it should be my hand. My sense of injustice is perhaps a little too pronounced, a little over-sensitive. Also, I’m very temperamental, a quality which is little improved by my personal habits. I might, in a fit of pique, strike everyone with an Ohio driver’s license blind, for example. Not that that would affect their driving much.

I can well imagine myself, sitting and watching C-SPAN over a glass of whiskey, deciding, “Well, that’s gonna be just about enough outta YOU, Tom DeLay…a curse upon your house unto the fifth generation!” At which point the entire DeLay family would be struck by a curious, hitherto unknown malady which would cause their right arms to shrivel and atrophy, finally falling off like dried-up umbilical cords; and from the place where each arm had been would spring a great, scaly, foul-smelling reptilian wing.

A God of Justice should probably have a lighter touch than that. It would be poetic justice, maybe, but not actual justice.

Still, it would be aesthetically pleasing, and that’s where my real talent lies. I don’t want to make macro changes. I don’t want power over life and death and the weather and continental drift. I am NOT the sort of man with whom that much power and responsibility could be trusted. But I could make micro-changes that would just improve the experience of living for everyone in small, simple ways.

Take hummingbirds, for example. They are very lovely and impressive little creatures with their super-duper-hi-fi metabolism and ability to float in midair. I love hummingbirds. But when the cold weather comes, they migrate south. I’m sure the tropical folks love them during winter, but you know what? Those of us in the cold parts of the world need them more. Folks in the tropics have the sun for company, but we need all the happiness and beauty we can get.

I think that hummingbirds should hibernate instead of migrate. I think they should create nice warm little cocoons for themselves. And because a hummingbird’s diet is mostly sugar, these cocoons would take the form of little bulbs that would look like they were made of spun glass, like Christmas ornaments with beautiful colorful birds inside, and they would hang from tree branches all winter long, catching the light and sparkling like precious stones in the forest.
The cocoons, which would be transparent to start with, would function like greenhouses to preserve warmth through the cold months. As winter passed, though, each cocoon would gradually fill with the hummingbird’s waste, but again, this would take the form of little sugar crystals that would line his feathers and gradually fog the glass and make the cocoon even more colorful, like a prismatic snowglobe; and you could tell how much of the winter was left by how opaque the cocoons had become.
And then in spring, when the bird was ready to awaken, the cocoon would burst in a puff of sweet, iridescent, multi-hued powder, and its resident would fly off to continue the business of whatever a hummingbird’s business is.
Think how much more beautiful winter would be if that was the case, and ask yourself whether I shouldn’t be Deputy God in Charge of Beautification Projects. I mean, it’s a big beautiful world out there already, and I have very few complaints, but I could touch up the corners a bit, maybe. I could airbrush away a few of the rough edges.
There’s a job out there needs doin’, and I’m the man to do it. I’m starting tonight, brothers and sisters. Forward any requests or ideas to this address, and love to all.

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This is the transcript of my first-ever Live Journal voice post. It was originally published in October, just as the weather started to get cold.