Jim Taylor's Soft Edges
Dumbing Down God
Wednesday March 28, 2007
My computer crashed last week. I was writing a column when
the screen suddenly went blank. The box containing electronic components
emitted a faint, high-pitched, wail of misery.
My service guru took away the metal coffin of what used to be my
computer.
I felt helpless. I couldn't write. I couldn't even get e-mail until I got my laptop connected.
To my credit (I hope) I didn't blame God. I didn't treat the crash as punishment for procrastination. I didn't say, "It must be God's will."
Perhaps I think of computer malfunctions as beyond even the authority of the Almighty.
Overheard on the radio
But then, almost like divine intervention, I received an
e-mail message confirming my unwillingness to attribute the computer failure
to a God who micro-manages human affairs. The e-mail contained an article by
Elayne Clift, a writer from Saxtons River, Vermont. She described driving
south to Florida.
"There was a lot of God-talk on the radio," she noted. God helped
this person pass an exam, gave that one a raise, made this team win, saved
that person from an accident…
"God," Elayne wrote, "is so busy micro-managing millions of lives
that I wonder how He ever rests on the seventh day."
She called it, "the trivialization of a higher being—a presence that
we collectively call God regardless of our cultures, belief systems, and
religions…"
"Even as a youngster, I bristled at the sight of athletes crossing
themselves before stepping to the plate… I cringed at platitudes like the
ones uttered by our neighbors when a child on our street died of leukemia.
‘She's with God now,' they said, while I wondered what in the world God
would do with a two-year old who missed her mommy. I lost patience with kids
who told me they'd prayed for a bike at Christmas, or adults who asked God
to make the sun shine for their Sunday picnic.
"I never got mad at God when things went wrong, but I did wonder how
a loving God could let so many bad things happen if He had such enormous
control over everyone and every little thing."
Childish wishes
Listening to the car radio, she wrote, "brings back my
inner child. So much of the talk is itself childish. It's full of magical
thinking, worn out clichés. And those awful platitudes—just pray harder and
your impoverished life won't be so hard to bear. Ask God for forgiveness and
all will be right with your world… Forgive me, but that kind of tripe drives
me nuts.
"Not because I don't believe in some kind of higher order. It's
precisely because I strongly suspect there is something much bigger than
anything we mortals know that I resist trivializing it. If there is indeed a
God, then what extraordinary disrespect we pay to such a higher being by
expecting Him (is God really gendered?) to care who wins the ballgame…
"So pardon me if I get upset when people treat God as though He were
right up there with the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. To
me, God—whatever that word means—is too big even for adult minds to grasp
with certainty, too important to be dumbed down."
Amen.
Jim Taylor
 Soft Edges
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Jim Taylor has more than 40 years experience writing and editing, in broadcasting, magazines, newspapers, and books. He was for 13 years the managing editor of a 330,000 circulation magazine; he co-founded a publishing house; he has written 13 books and has lost count of the number of magazine articles. Although theoretically retired, he continues to edit two or three books a year, dispenses advice liberally, and teaches his Eight-Step Editing workshops across Canada.
