I never expected to land an interview with God. He was in town for a book tour, signing copies of his motivational book My Journey Through Irritable Bowel Syndrome, a condition he says he just recovered from with a combination of mindfulness and careful dietary changes.
I was surprised to see how sparsely attended his book talk was, and the small crowd seemed to mute Jehovah’s enthusiasm for his subject. He blandly went through his gradual recovery from IBS, a condition that affects between 25 and 45 million Americans. While extolling the virtues of mindful eating and green leafy vegetables, the Supreme Being joked that paying too much attention to events on Earth had contributed greatly to his malady, eliciting a few titters from the audience.
When I approached him for an interview after his speech, he was unexpectedly delighted. He invited me to join him for a drink in the restaurant of his hotel, the Vagabond Inn, a 2 star facility across the street from the bus station. “The Vagabond’s all right,” he mumbled as we entered the dingy diner. “Seven bucks for a Caesar’s Salad and the martinis are cheap,” he said with a wan smile on his ancient face.
I was curious about what he thought about his most devout Evangelical followers’ fanatical support of President Trump, but initially he demurred. “Please, no, politics, all right? How do you think I beat IBS?” But after a couple of martinis, God abruptly became animated and turned back to the Evangelicals.
“That whole ‘Cyrus Anointing’ thing is a crock!” he blurted out, referring to the theory many Evangelicals embrace that God uses ungodly and immoral men for godly purposes. A multitude of preachers have recently alluded to the Biblical example of King Cyrus of Persia, a pagan and worldly man who freed the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity, to explain why God would use a man with absolutely no scruples like Donald Trump to carry out his will.
“The same hucksters who preach an absolute moral truth are now telling you that you can be the skankiest douchebag in the world as long as you carry out my supposed will,” the Lord almost shouted as he raised his hand to signal his readiness for another martini to the waitress. “A third grader could tell you they’re making an ends-justifies-the-means argument. They’re saying that I, God, am a moral relativist, a transactional deity that grants special permission to be a prick if you do my bidding. You can grab three pussies for every anti-abortion judge. You get to bang one porn star and pay her off for every statement about ‘religious freedom.’ You can tear a thousand immigrant families apart for every special favor to Evangelical Christians. You earn five racist tweets every time you wave the Bible around at your rallies.”
By now many of our fellow diners were glancing over at us. The waitress arrived with God’s third martini, and he snagged it greedily and took a generous sip. “The Cyrus Annointing…they can blow it out their asses. Listen, Cyrus was a pagan but he was also a brilliant empire builder, and he freed my people. And King David was a hound for sure, but he had a great military mind and man, could he play the lyre! But Trump is just a fucking scumbag. A fat, stupid, lazy son-of-a-bitch who would be hawking stereo components from the trunk of his car or timeshares somewhere if he hadn’t inherited hundreds of millions from his racist old man.”
God suddenly groaned and clutched his belly. “This is why I don’t like to talk about this…I shouldn’t have ordered this last martini, but…I can’t get through to them, the Trump people…the Reprehensibles…”
“The Deplorables,” I corrected him.
“Whatever,” he said, rising abruptly. “Look, I’ve got to stay mindful and do some self-care, all right? I shouldn’t have…Listen, have a good night…and read my book, okay? Your stomach will thank you.”
With that God turned and left the diner, still holding his abdomen and grimacing sadly.