Just when I thought it was safe to proceed with a planned topic, another Kennedy has died tragically. And it had to be JFK Jr. Damn! That was very irresponsible of him to die when I was just about ready to pitch him to carry Closet Philosophy in George magazine! (Go ahead, throw the tomatoes.) You'd think someone is trying to wipe out this whole faux-royal clan, and worse, doing it in the most tabloid-friendly way possible. But aren't they all God-fearing Roman Catholics? What ever did they do to deserve this kind of fate? Who knows?

I do know that whole "fear God" theme in the Bible has always bothered me. It leads to a very fickle, threatening image for the Supreme Being. Almost like He's a junkie. "Give me my Hosanna fix OR ELSE!" Woof! Better start praising Him or you're toast! Fearing God sure is a powerful metaphor and easy to sell, but is this the way things really are?

The image of God as one who sits in judgment, one who always is ready to destroy you, really harkens back to Mesopotamian kings. It's understandable. Think of the ancient priests trying to explain why the universe is the way it is to some dumb-as-dirt peasant--they'd naturally end up saying something like, "God is like our king, only bigger." When earthquakes or storms happened, the Big King in the sky did it. And the priests always had a reason why He did it that the rabble could understand: YOU'VE BEEN BAD. Fear God because His Ax is always ready to fall on you, so get into temple and start praising! The image stuck; even today insurance companies call natural disasters "acts of God."

It's way too anthropomorphic for me. I think God must be different than the emotional midget that the "fear God" reasoning describes. But sometimes real events have just too much coincidence--you almost have to think some sort of Divine Hand is guiding events. Let me show you. Settle down now children, here's the story I call The Parable Of The Bent Cross.

In the land East of Eden--Eden, Minnesota at least--between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it also was built a fine parochial school. It served the faithful well. So well, that after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was built. It was a beautiful church; well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall gold cross. The congregation felt proud of their church, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice any more. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way.

One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manners of games--ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulettes wheels. Then all who lived in the land between the two rivers were beckoned to come play the games for two days and two nights. And they did come hither and gamble.

And in the afternoon of the first day God looked down through the church's tents, for no mere weaving of man can hold out his glare, and He saw that the people were gambling in His name. "God does not play dice!" He said. And the vibrations of His words became a twirling in the clouds. And the twirling became a twisting, a darkness in the clouds stretching down, a howling funnel of wind.

The people in the tents heard the whirlwind's approach. They abandoned their games and made haste to the buildings, crying out for mercy. Like a huge saber guided with strange surgical precision, God's winds cut an arc between the church and the school. Everything the people left there was taken up into the heavens. Soon thereafter God's anger subsided. The storm winds moved away and all the tents, all the games and all the ill-gotten money was sown lightly over the face of the land.

The people crept out of hiding to look over what God had wrought. The congregation of Saint Gertrude had been spared from His wrath. They felt joy upon seeing their school was also spared. And yeah, verily, even their beautiful church was still standing. The last breath of wind departed and God's Light broke through the clouds to reveal His Wind's last work. Atop the steeple, now the thin metal cross was tipped crooked. The faithful knew it was a sign, but they quaked when they thought what the terrible sign meant.

Here ends the reading of the lesson.

Did you enjoy the story, kids? If I had worked a little harder at my Elizabethan English you might have even mistaken it for a passage in the Bible. Well, guess what? This story is all true. At least in all the important points. God didn't say that about playing dice, Albert Einstein said those words while arguing about Hisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. And the part about the sun breaking through right on cue is a bit of a stretch, but it was sunny the next day, in August of 1969 when I saw St. Gertrude's bent cross. The church is still there today, about two miles away from where I used to live in Ohio. The tornado did indeed appear on the very weekend they were having their annual fundraiser in the parking lot. Yes, they were gambling, and yes, the funnel did cut through right between the church and the school, destroying the event and leaving the buildings pretty much intact. Except for the cross.

I was never a member of St. Gertrude's, but I wish had been just to have heard their priest's sermon the next Sunday. In an earlier age the story certainly would have made the late edition of the Bible. So, if you were the Bible reporter, what would you have written? Was it force of evil that made the wind and the faithful were spared when a Divine Miracle steered it between the buildings, or was it like Jesus throwing the money changers out of the temple, a warning to keep God's House holy?

At least it wasn't Hurricane Mitch that hit the church; now that's some real Wrath of God stuff. You remember Mitch, a powerful storm came to the Honduran coast last October, went a little way inland and PARKED. It was a big storm, so big that part of Mitch was still over the ocean. The high winds did not subside. Most hurricanes may hit a spot for about ten or twelve hours, a bad one may last a day. Mitch straddled several countries in Central America for SIX DAYS. Scores of villages and farms were destroyed, around 10,000 people died. I recall a Honduran minister who had survived sobbing, "I love God. But I'm mad at him." Who wouldn't be after living through that? Anyway, if you subscribe to that Fear-God dogma, you must think the people down there were terribly wicked and God was REALLY PISSED OFF to punish them like that.

Likewise the people of St. Gertrude must have transgressed somehow to deserve a tornado thrashing. Seemingly the bent cross would be exactly the kind of sign that would tell them to repent, but no, that conclusion was too heavy to live with. In the end they went ahead and repaired the cross and sort of covered up their story. I saw it again this spring, still standing nice and upright. I always thought that it would've been better to leave Gertie's Cross bent over, though. It was only 15 or 20 degrees off center. I would have sent some workmen up to make certain that it would not fall on anyone and then LEAVE IT THAT WAY. If the faithful really believed the literal truth of their Book, then when they were truly back in God's favor, He would send another tornado to make it straight again.

I can't believe in a God that beats up people for not loving him, but how do you explain the behavior of those two storms anyway? At least we know more that the ancients; that in truth we are living on a watery planet in space. We travel around the sun, a nuclear furnace so powerful that even 93 million miles away, each day's light hits the planet with the force of several H-bombs. Fortunately this force is spread lightly over the whole planet so it doesn't kill us outright, but it does send lots of water into the air from the oceans. All that water makes storms. These storms have to go somewhere. And since man is everywhere on the surface of Earth these days, somebody is in the path of each storm. Nothing personal, that's just the way it is.

Funny though, even I have to admit that storms are acts of God in a way. Since I define God as the ground of reality, what made the Universe and is the Universe, EVERYTHING that happens is an act of God. Even when He/She/It throws dice. Even when He/She/It arrives in the form of cross repairmen. God is a king? No, it's more like God is a musical instrument, the Harp of All Possibilities. It's the ultimate symphony and cacophony all at the same time. Listen to the notes.

And don't try to fly though bad weather without an instrument rating. Heck, maybe Junior's demise proves I'm wrong and that God really is a praise junkie. Or maybe a Lutheran who just doesn't like Catholics. All I know for sure is that talking about the Big King in the sky has given me a strange craving for hamburgers. So for now I'm going to shut the Closet and go get something to eat. Until next month then, thanks for reading.


(C) 1999 Rusty Pipes

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