Oh, God!

by Avery Corman

“So you’ve decided to just let us stumble along, and never do a thing to help?” “You got to understand, I went through my manipulative, controlling stage. You know what I mean from manipulative? It was back in the Ten Commandments days. Now I had it in mind there should be about five thousand commandments, to cover every eventuality. Things like: Thou Shalt Pick Up the Trash from the Picnic Areas. Thou Shalt Help Old Ladies to Cross the Road, Unless You’re an Old Lady, in Which Case You Should Watch Good. Like that. Then I changed my mind and did a rewrite. I got it down to about eight hundred commandments. But even that was a little cumbersome. So I rewrote again and got it down to a hundred. Then all the way down to fifteen. Only Moses told me, ‘They’ll never sit still for fifteen commandments, make it eight.’ And I said twelve. And he said nine. And I said ten. And he said sold. But he was wrong anyway. They don’t even sit still for ten.” “Well, you may think we’ve disappointed you, but you’ve disappointed us.” Imagine me coming on to Him that way, but somehow I found the nerve and I had to say it. “How can you permit the suffering that goes on in the world?” “I don’t. You do,” He said.