A Uniformly Lousy Idea

If I had unlimited resources, I would, by definition, be God--which is a uniformly lousy idea. This, I fear, would not be a desirable state of affairs, inasmuch as I'm much choosier about my associations than God. God has repeatedly demonstrated a deplorable lack of discretion, an unfortunate leniency forsworn by the more sophisticated among us.

Were I God, karma would operate with greater precision, for instance. People who dumped 140 million barrels of bleak darkness into the Gulf of Mexico would wake up to find that certain organs had fallen off in the bleak darkness of the night. God is much too lax in the retributive justice department for my tastes.

If had a hammer . . . health industry executives who get fat on the forage of the sick and the poor would find their pastures re-zoned somewhere in the Gobi. And the politicians who've had their own fields watered by these bloated and self-interested bureaucrats would be re-purposed, put in charge of the management and quality control of natural fertilizer.

Put me in charge and the folks at the top would find themselves uncomfortably transitioned to new positions of vassalage. No more bonuses, no more corporate jets, no more toothsome morsels served on bone china while folks outside the walls root through the teeth and bones to find leftover cartons of Chinese.

If I had unlimited resources, I would create a world more to my liking. Unfortunately, I suppose, since by most accounts I'm at the top of the heap, I'd be banished too.

Like I said, making me God would be bad for everybody--perhaps, most of all me.

Derek Penwell

Author, Speaker, Pastor, Activist. Derek Penwell is senior pastor of Douglass Boulevard Christian Church, and a lecturer at the University of Louisville in Religious Studies and Comparative Humanities. His newest book, Outlandish, focuses on understanding the political nature of Jesus’ life as a model for forming communities of resistance capable of challenging oppression in the pursuit of peace and justice.

He is an activist and advocate on local, state, and national levels on issues of racial justice, LGBTQ fairness, interfaith engagement, and immigrant and refugee rights.

https://derekpenwell.net
Previous
Previous

On Having Something to Say

Next
Next

Shouldn't I Look More Like My Role Models?