Because if there were such a kindly deity, certainly s/he would have caused at least one little earthquake to disrupt the train tracks to Auschwitz. And would it have been too much to ask for a gigantic earthquake affecting Auschwitz itself? That would have been a nice thing, God! Your reputation would be in much better shape today if you had done that!
In fact, after five years of researching the Holocaust for the play I was writing, did I come across ONE INSTANCE of a natural event that Jews could describe as God intervening on their behalf? NEVER! NOT ONE!
And WE'RE the ones who discovered this goddam monotheistic God! Nobody would even KNOW about him/her/it if it hadn't been for the JEWS! So if this god is so nice, he/she/it would CERTAINLY have helped US before ANYONE! Right?
It just gripes my ass when someone says, "The surgeons operated for five hours, and she recovered! God saved her life!" If I was a surgeon, that would really piss me off. I mean, I'm NOT a surgeon, and it pisses ME off. It offends my sense of reason. If I was a surgeon, I would say, "If GOD did it, then HE should repay all that money I borrowed to go to medical school, not ME!"
So no benevolent god. Not happening. The jury is no longer out on this one.
But what about an EVIL god? Of course I know there is no god one way or the other, but how to explain this really rotten lucky our side is having?
EXHIBIT ONE: If Ruth Bader Ginsburg lasted this long, couldn't God have let her live two more more months, until Trump & Company got their asses kicked?
EXHIBIT TWO: The pandemic. Okay, I know some kind of pandemic was inevitable. The experts have been saying that for a long time. But did it really have to happen on TRUMP'S WATCH? Why couldn't it have happened when OBAMA was President? Can you imagine how different that would have been? Calmness, reason, organization, everyone wearing a mask as a patriotic act, tens of thousands of lives saved. Of maybe it could have been delayed until BIDEN was in office. Hopefully, there are just four years of Trumpian insanity in world history. Why also a pandemic coinciding?
Starting to look like suspicious timing, eh?
And then:
EXHIBIT THREE: A lightning storm in CALIFORNIA??? I'm sorry. I'm a native and I don't remember one of those. There are very few THUNDER storms at all in California. I remember once, when I was a kid and my parents were gone, Nancy and I were so frightened by the phenomenon of an ordinary thunderstorm that I decided we should drag our mattresses into the hall, so we wouldn't be struck by lightning coming in a window.
This is how weather works: LIGHTNING is followed by THUNDER is followed by RAIN, which puts out any possible fires the LIGHTNING has started. And this particular sequence happens all the time in other parts of the country but rarely in California. Am I right or am I right?
But just a whole shitload of LIGHTNING?!? Come ON!
We are having some hella bad luck, Bloggelinis. Or is it "just" luck?!?
That's what I was thinking when the phone rang, and it was my friend Revital. She asked how I was and I told her I was on my knees. She's Israeli, and she told me the Hebrew expression for that, which translates as "on the plank," as in "lying on the floor."
You know, it's one thing to be on your knees and it's a totally different thing to tell your good friend that you're on your knees. Suddenly, you're not on your knees anymore. You're chatting with another human being about a multiplicity of things in your life, in her life, in the world.
After we hung up, I got off my knees and went on with my day. I actually started reorganizing my guest room, which is where I have taken to throwing things since the pandemic started. It was so crammed with stuff overflowing onto the floor that I could hardly make my way in without stumbling, shuffle or no.
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