Job 2.0 Page 4

  “Okay,” God said. “I’ll stick to just listening.” God again was polite, not mentioning Lucifer’s contradictory position about fairness. God said, “I may not appear to be actively influencing every instance of life, but I do keep track. After all, it is my Universe.”

  “Whatever!”

  Lucifer was peeved. Getting peeved at God was natural for him. That’s why he had split away from God and left Heaven. Lucifer wanted to run the Universe. He really wanted to be God. The trouble for Lucifer was that, although he was an expert at manipulating all things in the Universe, being adept at combining parts of the Universe into new configurations and even creating on a small scale he could not do what God had done. God spoke the Universe into existence. Lucifer envied what God had done and he could not do. Envy fed his ego and drove Lucifer into darkness—the place where there was no God.

  ********

  On Earth Jake mused some more. “If God was that way—you know, petty—well, would he really be God?”

  “It’s something to think about. Maybe it’s true,” Larry offered. “Or maybe you screwed up and God is just getting even. Or even worse, you screwed up really bad and he’s going easy on you now, preparing to drop a bigger hammer later—maybe he will strike you dead.”

  “No, no, that can’t be it,” Jake said with determination. “I don’t think God did any of this to me. If God had the power to create something as big as the Universe, I doubt that he would waste his time on causing my tiny set of troubles. He’s bigger than that.”

  “Don’t be so quick to dismiss the idea,” Larry countered. “Everyone believes that God is the source of evil as well as good. Don’t fight it with your limited skills of reason. Just go with it as a belief—a widely held belief.”

  Does the “everyone believes it” line sound familiar?

  It did to Jake.

  He responded forcefully. “I don’t care what everyone believes. My ability to reason tells me that any payback, karma, or mystical forces involved in my woes are not from God. When reason sleeps all kinds of monsters appear, and my power to reason is all I have to hold back when the monsters attack me. It stands to reason that a creator would not destroy his own creation. In my heart, I don’t want to imagine it any other way. And at times I feel as if the Devil himself is dragging me away from whatever is really good in my life.”

  “Dude, you’re not that important.”

  “Well, sometimes I think I am!”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I don’t know how I’m sure. I just am.

  *********

  Up above, God smiled and the light in all of God’s creation amped up a notch.

  Lucifer shouted, “Crap!” Hardly anyone heard him.

  #2

  A voice came from a figure quietly listening in the corner. “Jake, when I look at what happened to you, all I can see is yellow flashing lights.” It was Kyle, the team’s longtime bench warmer. “If it was up to me I’d play it safe, be cautious, lay low, hide my name tag. Your mantra should be easy does it…easy does it…easy does—”

  “It figures, you wimp!” interrupted Larry. “Kyle, you never saw a challenge you wouldn’t avoid.” He grabbed Kyle’s hat, tossed it aside, placed him in a headlock, and began administering a vigorous noogie.

  “Ow!” Kyle cried out. “Stop! That hurts! Stop!”

  Larry rubbed harder and faster. “I’ll stop the noogies when you quit telling Jake to lay low. He’s broke and needs a job! Uncle? Uncle? Say, ‘Uncle!’”

  “Okay! Okay!” Kyle blurted. “I give in—Uncle!”

  Larry released him. “Now is not the time for Jake to be cautious. He needs to ‘go for it,’ ‘tempt the fates,’ ‘push the edge of the envelope.’”

  “Sure—sure—sure,” chanted Kyle. “But listen to me—listen! I heard what he said about God. And I disagree.”

  “Tell me your side of things,” Jake said.

  “It’s simple. All that belief stuff is important but, Jake, you must shape and tone your actions in light of what other people think about life and God. You have to and must blend in.”

  “Okay, I get it,” Larry said, nodding toward Jake. “You’re saying Jake should go with the flow one hundred percent.”

  “Right!” agreed Kyle. “Go with the flow!”

  *********

  Up above, God said, “I don’t like the sound of ‘go with the flow.’”

  “I do,” grinned Lucifer. “If Jake follows his friend’s advice, I’ve got him. I’ll win! Here, Boss, look at this.” He pulled out a folder, took out a couple of pages, and waved them before God. Lucifer was referring to a recent study indicating that on Earth he was doing quite well versus God. Lucifer invented the phrase “according to a recent study of (fill in with whatever you want)” as a means to convince people to do all sorts of foolish things.

  The study’s title revealed why Lucifer was so excited. “People Grow Skeptical of God” was in big bold letters. The study revealed that in the past three decades the number of people who believe in God had decreased by half, and the number praying had declined fivefold.

  “It appears that people have lost faith in you,” Lucifer said with unbridled pride. “And it won’t be long before the target of our contest agrees with them, too!”

  God frowned. God was sad. His sadness was for the people who did not pray. God enjoyed listening to prayers and he enjoyed answering them, too.

  On Earth Lucifer appeared to be winning. He very badly wanted Jake to be in his fold. “Go with the flow, Jake,” Lucifer whispered. “Go with the flow.”

  **********

  “But what if I really do believe in something and it’s unpopular?” Jake queried his friends. “Do I just lie about what I believe?”

  “Sure, particularly if you’re doing it to get along. You know, to please people. You don’t want to offend anyone,” Kyle replied. “Your goal in life should be to fit in.”

  “I agree,” Larry chimed in without noticing the irony of his statement in light of his recent remarks. Previously he told Jake to stretch the envelope, and now he wanted Jake to hide inside it.

  “I don’t know,” Jake countered. “I’m not convinced that being agreeable just to be agreeable will improve my lot in any way. I want to live by my convictions—my beliefs.”

  ********

  “Those idiots!” shouted Lucifer. “We almost had him. Their motto should be ‘We’re slow, but we do poor work.’ I can’t stand it when a trend reverses—even a little bit. It particularly irks me when dopes like Larry and that other fool are not getting the job done. Looks as if I’ll have to go down there to pitch a few balls myself. The best place to toss a lie is between two truths, and if those fools can’t influence Jake any better, I guess that I’m going to aim my best stuff right between the tidbits of truth that Jake relies upon.”

  “And what might your best stuff be,” asked God, “sliders, or curves?”

  Lucifer, forgetting that God invented the baseball analogy, tried another route. He boasted, “No! I’ll use a new approach—one that really works—my latest version of the seven deadly sins: greed, sex, violence, virtual violence, preoccupation with trivia, political correctness, and celebrity worship.”

  “That’s quite a list.”

  “You bet it is! I’ve got most of the world in a state of chaos with what I’ve done. There is no culture, or even a counterculture, anymore. People are chasing about filled with half-baked ideas that I constantly toss their way. Right now I’ve got them actually following imaginary sports.”

  “You are referring to fantasy football?”

  “Yep! Even the real stuff isn’t good enough,” bragged Lucifer.

  “That is absolutely amazing! So what is your goal?”

  “You gotta be kidding! It’s the same old, same old thing. One day I’m gonna run everything!”

  “Luce, along with your persistence, I am amazed by your ambition.”

  “Well, you ought to be, ‘cause one
day I am going to win and you’ll be in the unemployment line. For instance, now—right now on Earth—I’ve got a good number of them not believing in you and the rest believe that I do not exist. You get it? I can win both ways!”

  “How does that work?”

  “They’ve lost faith in you and I’m not a threat. So as soon as I get them to accept my temptations as their normal desires, I will have total control over them. And when I have all of Earth doing my bidding, it will be mine forever. You’ll be cut out of your own creation and I’ll have a permanent safe base—not one you merely allow me to play with.”

  #3

  “Jake, maybe it would help if you went to church.” The advice came from Keith, the consummate team player.

  “What will I find at church?” Jake asked.

  “A lot of smart people. Nice ones, too,” Keith told him.

  Larry, always up for a tussle, snidely tossed his view into the mix. “At church I’ve found that there are only three kinds of people—those who count and those who don’t.”

  Confused, Keith uttered, “Huh? What you said doesn’t add up. That’s only two kinds of people.”

  “Okay,” blurted Larry, “I’ll amend my list—there are smart ones, good looking ones, and rich ones—that’s three—and it’s the three kinds of people you see at my church.”

  “At my church, Unity Village, we focus on sharing the positive experience of praise and worship,” Keith quickly countered. “In the past, attending church was all about enduring stale liturgy and boring sermons. Now, at Unity, we joyously sing, share joy with one another, and hear a relevant message, which is always inspirational. After that we sing some more before breaking for refreshments, which usually include some wonderful homemade baked goods made with healthy ingredients.”

  “Healthy baked goods!” blurted Larry. “What’s next, low-cal donuts—with bigger holes? Jake, you must come to the Universal Cathedral of Goodness. It has the message on how you can be a winner again. Get this, our leader Pastor Donny Joel is so successful. He and his wife, the beautiful Chrissie, receive no salary from the congregation. Instead, they live the life of success based solely on the book and video sales of their messages delivered at the cathedral. I’ve been to Keith’s place and all I can say is ‘no thanks’ to a message supported by free cookies. I don’t want what he’s got.”

  “What is it about the message at Unity you don’t like?” Jake asked.

  “It’s loser worship. The Kumbaya happy type, where miserable people with poor habits waste their time and yours with useless routines and rituals.”

  “I beg your pardon,” replied an indignant Keith. “Our practices—what you call useless rituals—are important!”

  “Beg pardon back,” Larry wheezed as he inhaled some beer. “Your meetings are full of mere controlling routines played over and over and over by weak losers wanting to dominate even weaker ones. Jake, you need to get over the negative happenings in your life by being with winners—real winners.” Larry kept drinking, then added, “I think, maybe God isn’t mad at you after all—maybe you just haven’t heard the right message.”

  “What is the right message?” Jake demanded.

  “The message,” shouted Larry, “is that God loves winners!”

  “I thought he loved everyone,” Keith countered with a huff.

  “Yeah, yeah—I’ve heard that, but it’s only half the message,” asserted Larry as he chewed on a hunk of breakfast burrito and quickly washed it down with more beer. “It’s so simple—everyone loves a winner, especially God.”

  “What about the less fortunate?” Jake asked.

  “He loves them, too—just not as much.” Larry was on a roll. “It makes sense. The winners get the best treatment in life—you know, health, wealth, public acclaim. The losers, if they are lucky, get to ride along, participating in the process. You know, they do the feel-good churchy stuff while they benefit from the efforts of the winners.” He looked to Keith for affirmation.

  Keith went blank, then whispered, “I dunno. I dunno.”

  “See!” Larry exclaimed. “Keith’s ‘I dunno’ proves my point. Just pass through the parking lots of both our churches—that’ll convince you. High-end rides versus minivans and cheap SUVs.”

  “Like, maybe at the cathedral I’ll see a familiar Series 7 BMW?” Jake asked.

  “Yeah, yeah—sure!” answered the not-so-smart Larry.

  “No, thanks. I’ll pass.” Jake rolled his eyes and continued. “I think people deserve nothing from God. It’s that simple. Everything we have is a gift from our creator. We have been given life and are owed nothing and deserve nothing.”

  “Pastor Donny would disagree,” said Larry.

  “I’d expect nothing else,” Jake replied. “I’m certain his message is that God means only to drape us in riches—with the biggest share going to the winners.”

  “Yes!” cried Larry. “Like I said, God loves winners!”

  Jake shook his head. “It’s déjà moo.”

  “Huh?” uttered Larry.

  Jake answered, “I’ve heard that bull before.” Everyone burst into laughter, except Larry. His face assumed a concrete pout. Jake said to him, “God made billions of losers—and I’m one of them. I’ve suffered great losses and I hurt—a lot. I’m certainly not a winner by any of Pastor Donny’s standards, and I certainly don’t want to be like the butthole my wife went for. Pastor Donny has nothing for me. The prosperity message he is known for doesn’t work when hard times hit. Suffering is real and inescapable. And it’s valuable in its own right. It’s what tests our mettle.”

  “So you’ll come to my church, the Unity Village?” Keith asked.

  “I think not,” answered Jake.

  “Why?” Keith demanded uncharacteristically.

  “Because everyone has different flaws, which are distributed and exposed for each of us in a variety of ways.”

  “I don’t follow,” Keith said.

  “A one-size-fits-all remedy for billions of people doesn’t make sense for me. Rituals, routines, and chanted prayers are not the way to go, in my humble opinion,” explained Jake. “I think each person is on their own journey and the path for each is individual and unique. I’ll find things in my own way.

  *********

  “I don’t like the way this is going,” muttered Lucifer. “This guy is proving to be a poor choice. He’s not the small-time putz and shallow thinker I took him for.”

  “Remember, he was your choice,” God said, snickering ever so slightly.

  “Stop it!” yelled Lucifer. “Stop with that ‘choice’ mantra you like so much. Pretty soon you’ll be doing one of your mind-game, time-loop thingies again, using it to explain everything.”

  “You mean like, infinite choices must lead eventually to the one possibility of returning a perfect universe where unity, the singularity, returns and—?”

  “STOP IT! I SAID STOP!”

  “Okay, but it was your—?”

  “Choice! Choice! Choice! CHOICE!” he yelled. “Are you happy now?”

  “Perhaps this was not such a good idea. Maybe we should just call it quits. I’ll even let you have a draw,” offered God.

  “No, don’t go there!” Lucifer responded quickly. “I asked for it and I’m going to see it through. Last time, I just eased out of the picture and Job remained in your camp without an extended effort by me. I’m going on. No, more than that—I aim to prevail. I’ll get him to deny you and join with me. Like other humans, he’ll start by making little deals—for money and pleasures of the flesh. In the end he’ll deal away his soul. Others have done it. All I need is some time.”

  #4

  Meanwhile, back on Earth…

  “Can’t we all just get along?” asked Jason, the team’s utility infielder and all-around good guy. “As things go we really are decent people, but there can be so much more division within a group of nice guys like us than in a gang of professional criminals.”

  “Look! Mister Good G
uy has finally decided to speak!” taunted a renewed Larry. “Please, grace us with your wisdom!”

  Jason, nodded, smiled, and got up from his folding chair. He was used to Larry. “It is simply a matter of misguided preoccupation,” he matter-of-factly explained.

  “Ha!” Larry blurted. “With you everything is simple.” And before Jake could interject, or Keith could utter, “I dunno,” Larry added loudly, “Explain!”

  Unflustered, Jason shared his thought. “Although the bad guys agree to focus on evil acts, you chaps are too self-absorbed to agree on anything.”

  “That’s it?” Larry questioned. “That’s all you’ve got?”

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  There was a long silent pause—a standoff between teammates. Larry bent first, and in defeat he waved for Jason to proceed. “The floor is yours.”

  “I heard you talk about churches—about which one is better, yours or Keith’s. Actually, both are deficient. They only exist so that the people who want to attend get something. And what they get does not matter. Ancient scriptures, from all the world’s cultures, speak of self-control, self-denial—certainly not how much stuff you can collect, how good you can feel, and certainly not self-worship. Most churches today are peddling self-esteem, self-love, self-assertion, and even self-forgiveness. God is rarely mentioned; it’s all ‘me, me! Me!’ If and when God is described, it’s only as some sort of ATM in the sky pumping out health, wealth, and giddy self-absorbed feelings.”

  “If we are so wrong, what is right?” asked Larry. “Inform us mortals. What do you believe?”

  “It is not what I believe that is important,” Jason shared. “It is what I question.

  Everyone stared at him as if he had found gold.

  He continued. “Doubt is where we must begin the process of believing, and you can’t even start if you spend all your time worrying and scheming to get more than the next guy. That way makes it everyone against everyone. Look, me versus you and us versus them are not really the best ways to run the world. Rather, it should be everything versus the Truth.”