One

Last night I had dream that I was in a rowboat with Christ. We were in the Dead Sea and I was rowing while Jesus was talking about how his father was really pressuring him to take over the family business. “You know, I, I don’t even like woodworking. All the dust and the splinters, you know, I’m just not good with my hands and hours are lousy.”

Suddenly, he stopped speaking and looked upon me in the way only Jesus can look upon you and he said, “You seemed burdened by something. Tell me what it is my brother?"

“Well,” I said, “I was just wondering if you were going to help me row?”

Most of the people I deal with as an assistant pastor believe that God is truly interested in their daily lives—helping them row. No concern is too big or too small and they believe that God hears every prayer, every request, even the ones they cannot articulate. They believe that the miraculous happens in life’s smallest events, where like a slight of hand, God reveals His goodness in the most unexpected ways. How else can one explain the good fortune of free coffee and donuts after Sunday services?

To be honest, I think of God more like Woody Allen—a neurotic Jew who wears glasses, paces the floor of Heaven incessantly while nervously rubbing His hands together and lamenting the world that He’s created. “Geezus, what, what the hell is going on down there? You know, I don’t really want to be God anymore okay? I’ve got these terrible headaches, my ears are constantly ringing, which is probably cancer or some rare neurological disease that doctors have never heard of. Does anyone else hear that ringing? (He pauses).

“It’s awful, you know, ahem, all those people running around like ants and they’re all counting on me to make life have some sort of meaning for them when , you know, I’m really just kind making it all up while I go along. Hey, did anyone else read in the Times where matter is decaying? Am I the only one who saw that? (He hears laughter). “Hey Adam, go tickle Eve someplace else, will ya.” (Watches as Adam and a scantily clad Eve exit stage left). “Although, I must admit that when I created woman, I think that I, you know, did a pretty decent job.”

It’s not that I don’t have any faith. Perhaps I simply expect too much. I believe this comes from my mother’s early expectations of me; when I was five and asked her where I’d come from she told me that I was gift from God. Since my father had left our family three-years earlier, leaving me with few distinguishable memories, I took her story to be absolutely true. This belief caused me to be a serious child, although somewhat an outcast among my peers.

As I got older and discovered the story of Jesus I felt as though I’d found the perfect role model and I quickly substituted myself in the role of Christ. When I had to write a poem in fifth grade I wrote out the Lord’s Prayer and tried to pass it off as an original work. It’s funny because even back then I knew that I wanted to either be a professional baseball player or the Pope. The fact that I wasn’t Catholic didn’t diminish my desire—The first Protestant Pope in the history of world, right? Unfortunately, not only was I not Catholic but I was not a gifted athlete either. So rather than being a player on our high school team, I become the teams first official mascot. Our nickname was the Saints and I was a real crowd pleaser to be honest, although after the first home game, the manager insisted that I no longer dress up as Jesus and stop parading around the bases in-between innings while carrying a cross.