Divine Comedy

 

If history tells us anything, it is that God has less and less time for us. What scholars having been trying to figure out, is why? Is it simply a case of time management? That is, does God have so much to do in an ever expanding universe that he simply cannot find the time to deal with the petty necessities of man, or is he simply fed up with all our bullshit?

Scholars at the New School of Theology think it is the latter. "Just because we believe in God," Reverend James Hawthorne says, "doesn't mean he believes in us." In a world of increasing violence, disdain for all things religious, and rising cynicism, perhaps the good Reverend has a point.

One of the major problems according to Reverend Hawthorne is the system we have in place for communicating with God. "On the one hand," he tells us, "we have prayer. Through prayer we can talk directly to God and ask for his guidance, his forgiveness, his compassion. Unfortunately, too many human beings abuse the privilege. On average, how many prayers do you think God receives that are of a primarily selfish nature? And how many are superfluous? People ask God for help on their Algebra tests. They ask him to stop the room from spinning when they are too drunk. They ask to win the lottery. If you were God, how long would it take before you simply stopped listening? The thing is, prayer is like God's email; sure, there's some worthwhile stuff in there, but mostly it's just spam."

On the other hand, the major conduit for communication God has in place to speak to mankind is through prophets. While the idea of prophets and prophesy is a well established tradition, this form of communication has lost some of its cache in recent generations. "It used to be that we listened to the prophets," Cardinal Paul Breslow tells us. "They were revered. But prophesying became a way for people to get attention and in some cases, to make money. Imposters were abundant. As people became more and more cynical towards some of these self-proclaimed prophets they lost faith. Today if someone says that God is speaking through them, we lock them up in the nuthouse and medicate them into obscurity." The pervading feeling throughout the religious community is that because of mankind's ambivalence towards the modern day prophet, we might be missing some important messages from the divine. "Here at the New School of Theology," Reverend Hawthorne says, "we think it incumbent upon ourselves to make sure all so-called prophets have a chance to deliver their messages. We cannot leave this matter in the hands of skeptical, and sometimes atheist psychoanalysts; it's simply too important." As a result, The New School provides a safe haven for people who profess to communicate with God. "We like to think of it as the Lord's Ranch; a place where these people are safe from outside influence and intense mind altering therapy. We are also traditionalists at the Lord's Ranch. Every prophet is given a small cell to live in, two hair shirts, a flagellum (for self-mutilation), a bible, and a journal for keeping their thoughts. We feed them, cloth them, take them for supervised walks; in short we keep them safe." We should mention that all prophets are treated humanely and those that are deemed not to be in direct communication with God, but to be crackpots looking for attention are turned over to local psychiatric facilities.

However, this harvesting of prophets has come under fire recently. In a statement from the Vatican on Thursday, Pope Benedict XVI told reporters in broken English that the church in no way supports the herding of suspected prophets for the purposes of theological study or otherwise. "Even the crazies are God's children," the Pope states, "just as deserving of God's love as normal people or Jews."

Whether or not modern day prophets are just homeless people with psychological problems is still up for debate and a matter for theologians to decide. However, one thing is clear--human beings need a better way to communicate with the creator of Heaven and Earth. In this world of increasing violence, debilitating natural disasters, and religious cynicism, we need God's guidance more than ever. The next time you are in a park or walking under a freeway underpass and you happen to see a man or woman shoeless and covered in their own filth muttering to themselves, perhaps you should stop and listen; perhaps we all should. It is just possible that God is trying to tell us something and because we are afraid of the truth, we kill the messenger. Who knows, that loveable face in the psyche ward drooling on his or herself might just be the savior of mankind.

 

**Editors note: God was unavailable for comment concerning the issues mentioned in this article.