I.Q. (Important Question), I

If YOU had to pay others for your working...

WHAT would your work be?

And why isn't it?

"You said I could knock"

I am very, very sad today.
I am not even sure why. I woke up feeling like this, and I cannot shake an odd feeling of dread - very uncharacteristic of me.

But whatever it is, I know the following "letter to God" did influence my state of mind, at least to some degree.
So did- perhaps even more - some of the replies to it.

A good friend brought to my attention the text, which was written by a friend of his.
It was posted on a public "Christian forum"; but since it is thereby a public text, I don't think reproducing it here will do any harm to anyone.

If it does, it won't be for any infringement of copyrights or any such nonsense.

Yesterday, after I had received the text and had not yet read it, a friend read it while I was working.

"So... how is it?" I asked her over my shoulder as I typed.
Silence.
"Haven't you read it?" I asked.
No reply.

I turned around and looked at her.
She was sitting there in perfect silence, staring at the screen, with a hand over her mouth; and huge tears were streaming down her cheeks.

I had never seen her react like that, so I was shocked, alarmed.

It turned out the text had touched a nerve.
So did some of the replies to it.

I don't know how you will react to it, but I do think it's worth reading.
So here it is, copied and pasted.
(Only the user name is omitted, for reasons of simple and possibly absurd piety - but you have the URL, so it's not a "secret".)

YOU SAID I COULD KNOCK

(This is a "letter" to God - not a provocation of any sort, so please, don't feel offended.
And please, do NOT read this if you are at all prone to doubt or sadness.
Also, I don't think I'll be back, so there is no need to reply - unless you're God, of course. :)


I have been knocking for seven months now, even after you took from me, one by one, every single source of my modest happiness on Earth.
Without notice you took out the sole light of my life, my reason for doing and being.
You were deaf to my prayers, even though I prayed as you told us to.
In a single sweeping gesture, you also took from me the basic sustenance for me to grieve in peace. Instead, you thought it would be profitable for me to add a new burden on my already broken back.

And yet, the more you oppressed me, the more I kept praying and counting on your help – BLINDLY counting on your providence.

But you just kept taking away from me and destroying everything that I had built over many years. Every single work I ever started was dedicated to you – surely you must have known that? I said so, quite openly. I always asked for your assistance and guidance. Every single thought I had was a prayer. When I walked down the street, when I shopped for groceries, when I stood admiring the majestic beauty of nature, when I hummed to music, when I worked... You were always WITH me.
Weren't you?

Ever since you allowed the world to start hitting me, ever since you turned your back on me, things have been going from bad to worse. And, most extraordinarily, you chose to take away from me – from us – even the one thing I was sure could never be taken away by anyone: our family's togetherness and pure love. No thief could ever take that from us, I thought.

And I was right. No thief could do that – but you chose to destroy even THAT.

I was shocked; and I could not understand what was happening. After all, it's not like you were punishing a petulant child who isn't grateful for what she's got: surely you heard all the beats of my grateful heart over the years? Every joy I had I dedicated to you; I only turned to you when I was happy and grateful; on the few occasions that I asked for your help when I was in great trouble you didn't seem to have heard me at all.

And yet, I kept praying and singing your praises. And I kept smiling, even though my life was crumbling inside and out. I never complained to anyone; I didn't want to spread misery or fear. I didn't want anyone's confidence in you wane because of my Job-like calvary.

But after taking out the life of my life, the only earthly joy of my heart, you took away even the possibility of comfort, of grieving in peace; you took away my meagre fortune, my sustenance, and my reputation, which I had so painstakingly built over the years, by which you effectively took away my future. There is very little left – only debts and heartache – and the prospect of living destitute in a joyless world, in effective slavery.

Most of all, by your relentless deafness to my pleas you not only broke my own strength, but also my ability to pray to you.

So, was I no good to you while I was successful and striving for happiness and singing your praises?
Would I be of more use to you as a pauper? As a homeless, hungry wretch, cleaning toilets for a pittance? As the laughing stock of everyone who has the time and the inclination to kick somebody who is down?

If that is so, I am sure YOU know the reasons. But I don't. And forgive me for not embracing your mysteriously devised »plan«. You should know that it won't make me a better person; I already was that »better person«. And apparently that wasn't good enough for you.

Yes, I have been weak.
Is there no place for the weak on your Earth?

And I have been far from perfect.
But so are other people. At least I was always aware of my mistakes and regretted them.

But I was also many other things: joyful, humble, grateful, hopeful. Compassionate. And generous - that too. (Do you remember my giving, God? Have you, mighty accountant, figured out why all those to whom I had lent money, when I had very little of it myself, ignored my reminder that, after more than a year, I'd like my money back – because I needed to pay my bills? Don't you, the All-knowing, know that I have nobody to turn to?)

All my life I walked in grateful confidence.

Did that displease you?
Was that not the prayer that you wanted to hear?

Is »please, don't hit me« the prayer that you would prefer?

If such were the case, then you wouldn't be much better – or much more - than a medieval potentate who has to be curried for favours and whose moods are to be feared.
Or like those Chinese deities that are supposedly jealous of man's happiness, so humans have to hide it from them.

If such were the case, you would be no God at all.

Once upon a time, I was afraid that I might die in my sleep because of the pain that would cause to my loved ones.
Today, that seems to be my only escape.

So, here's your chance, dear God. Tonight is the night. Do that thing you promised to do: open the door. Listen to my dying heart and grant me THE miracle – or else go pour some more fragrant oil into the vials of the »wicked« ones, the ones that don't want to know your face, who may even spit on your name - who never think of you at all, but live happy and fulfilled in heir ignorance of you; who sleep peacefully in their comfortable beds, anticipating nothing but another fruitful day and then a weekend with their loved ones – while I fear going to sleep because there is a good probability that I might wake up. Wake up... to yet another pile of bills that cannot be paid, to yet another 20 hours of hunger and heartache, of wondering: what did I do? WHAT, in God's name, did I ever do to anyone, except bring them joy and comfort and, yes, very palpable help? As for my many ill deeds, I have repented for them so often and so bitterly in the past – if you were listening, surely you should know that.

Do that miracle – or go add some more bliss to those who never think about you – or about other people – because they have no use for your paradise: they have their own paradise, right here and now.

Is this an ultimatum?

You tell me, Almighty.
You may live outside Time, but I don't, because you yourself placed me within Time.
You allow the bill collectors and the bank – and my empty stomach, which is such a wonderful complement to a heart broken by long months of grief and deceived hopes – to persecute me pitilessly, without any regard for my sadness and loneliness and, yes, poverty; now I can actually speak of poverty. I don't have the money to buy even a lottery ticket.

You didn't care to preserve and protect a happy, grateful heart who considered herself RICH because she walked bathed in your Light and Grace – or so she thought.
Finish me off, then.
But, considering my recent past experience with your favours, even that might be too much to ask from you. Perhaps all the good pious people, sitting pretty in their comfy chairs, who IN YOUR NAME promise nothing but brimstone to those who take their own life, are right, after all. Perhaps you would like me to do that, so that you can have yet more fun with me, from here to eternity.

Or perhaps there is no YOU.
Not here, not in eternity.

I am not going to even comment on it, as I believe it's been formulated well enough for anyone - anyone with a heart and a mind and a minimal experience of the world - to understand.
In fact, it's one of the best formulated outcries to God that I've ever read. It is angry, yes, and not a little childlike, and extremely sad, but even in its anger it's not stupid "God-bashing", it is not shallow sulking; and even deep in the abyss of her pain, the author remains sensitive to other people, the readers.

What dumbfounded me were some of the replies - but please, note that I only read the first page.
And here's why I couldn't, didn't want to, go on reading the replies: with the exception of a sentence or two (which I thought were really good and, I hope, helpful to "Job" - especially the one of being "in construction", that was really good), they sound as if people simply did not read past the first three or four sentences.

They did not read it - or else, how could they reply like that?
Why reply at all, then?
She explicitly said she did not need any replies - and yet, some people apparently could not resist the temptation to offer their... oh, what was it - "well-rounded knowledge"...?

I am speechless.
And depressed.

I knew people in general had difficulty listening to other people.
Reading doesn't seem to come much easier to them.

And yet... if people who consider themselves to be followers of Christ cannot be bothered to really lend their ear to their "neighbour's" pleas ... who will listen?

If you are going to read it, then please read it: do not extrapolate, do not compare, do not scoff, do not judge. Take it seriously on both the emotional AND the intellectual level.

The "Jobs" of this world deserve nothing less.

And pray to God you never become one yourself.