God commands you to read this

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Friday, December 7, 2007

Richard Roberts told students at Oral Roberts University that he did not want to resign as president of the scandal-plagued evangelical school, but he did so because God insisted. �?A target=_top href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/runecraft.msnw?action=get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=7126&LastModified=4675699939239205508">Associated Press

"Oh hey, it's you," I said, feigning nonchalance, as if this sort of thing happens to me every day (I always like to throw God off a bit, given how He's so accustomed to those melodramatic, fall-to-your-knees-in-terror reactions He always gets from the nutball evangelicals whenever He swings through their nightmares in his classic fire/brimstone persona. That always cracks Him up). "What's up?"

"Oh, you know, same ol' same ol'," God muttered, His voice sounding like an ocean playing a cello concerto in a black hole. He grabbed my pricey Pinot and chugged nearly the entire thing like it was Trader Joe's house brand, His long, well-manicured, beautifully feminine fingers shiny with meat grease. "Just sorta bored, hanging around the universe, putting out little fires. How you doing? You get those sexy new floor cushions yet? How's the car running?"

Something was wrong. This wasn't like God at all. "Wait, what? You came all the way here from the belly of the cosmos, ignoring the unimaginable dance of astral forces and the infinite conundrums of colliding galaxies, not to mention the constant pitter-patter of little questions about the meaning of war and death and suffering and life itself, and you want to talk about home decor? What's going on?"

"Oh, you know Me, just trying to keep it real, visit My peeps personally now and then, offer advice like some sort of sniveling lawyer, like some sort of stupid little shrink who's speaking only to you, at the expense of everyone else."

Now I knew he was being sarcastic. At least, I think He was. You can never really tell with God. I mean, just look at Pluto. Or New Jersey. Or Tom Cruise.

Then it hit me. "Wait, is this about that obnoxious preacher's kid? That Roberts guy?" I'd just read about how Oral Roberts' wildly spoiled son Richard, the odious televangelist who headed Oral Roberts University and who's right now being sued for allegedly swiping mountains of cash from the financially strapped school to pay for lavish personal crap like shopping sprees and a private stable of horses and the repeated remodel of his home (11 times in 14 years!), and for flying his kid to the Bahamas on the school's private jet as his wife spends tens of thousands of dollars in university funds on clothes and sends furtive text messages to underage boys. You know, the usual.

And oh yes: I also recall that Roberts has officially claimed that God spoke to him in person, and instructed him to resign from the corrupt, horribly managed, deeply creepy university, over Roberts' own protests. Ah ha.

God sighed grumpily, sounding like two dump trucks mating in a hailstorm. "Look, you claim to be some sort of journalist, right? This little worm actually invoked My name as an excuse, dared to say that he talked to Me and that I insisted he resign. Insisted! Me! The f-ing nerve. I don't insist on anything, except maybe a little backrub from the cherubim at the M51 whirlpool galaxy now and then. That little scab is getting a first class ticket to Impotenceland, you can trust Me on that."

"Well, good. But I don't see how I ..."

"But that's not the worst part. The worst part is the lemmings, the crowd of wide-eyed students, they were eating it up! Actually weeping and cheering him on, fully believing every word, even as he wiped away his crocodile tears with a goddamn handkerchief he bought from a gay bathhouse in Vegas using their tuition money."

Then God shot me that sweet, imploring look that always makes me melt. "So here's the plan: I want you to write up something scathing and funny and pointed about how God visited you, in person, and you broke bread and shared a nice bottle of host's blood or whatnot, and I told you in no uncertain terms that Richard Roberts is a world-class charlatan with a rabid case of elephantiasis of the false spirit.

"I want you to ring the alarm, raise the roof, send out an S.O.S., put a message in a bottle, whatever the hell it is you writer people do. I'm getting tired of this."

I was, I have to say, a little taken aback. This wasn't like God, so spiteful, so easily annoyed by such petty, meaningless human shrapnel as Roberts. We usually laugh and shrug off stories like this, then move on to talk about, say, Buddhism, or the deeper meanings of tantric philosophy, the best meditation techniques to help you get past a nasty port wine headache. That sort of thing.

I had to ask. "OK, I give. What's this really all about? Because hell, they've been invoking Your name as an excuse for a couple thousand years, stamping it like a bad logo across everything from slaughtering pagans to detesting gays to screaming in fear of the human vagina to launching all manner of brutal war and torture and righteous moral crusade."

God just looked at me sidelong, and polished off the rest of the wine in a single sip.

I went on. "Look, You know better than anyone that Roberts is nothing more than a flea on the great sheepskin rug of human belief. But You know I'll try. As for the gaggle of students in his cultish thrall, well, I'll absolutely keep doing everything I can to inspire them to wake up one day with a Burning Man ticket in one hand and a well-licked copy of Rumi's collected poems in the other, shuddering with mad desire to drop some ecstasy and join in a dawn fire ritual and see, well, the real You."

God smiled. In a flash, the room went dark, and suddenly I felt a rush of warm air flow over me like molten honey, soothing my bones and penetrating my very blood and forcing me to close my eyes in what I can only describe as ecstatic cellular orgasm. It was, you might say, pretty nice.

When I opened my eyes again, God had morphed into Her other form, the divine female, the true ruling principle of the universe, skin like moonlight and eyes like diamonds and a massive mane of fiery red hair and a figure that could melt the ice planets of the Hyperion cluster in the Artemis nebulae. I mean, wow.

Her voice made the ground tremble beneath my feet. "You know what? You're absolutely right," She said, as the cellos changed into violins. "Guess I just needed that hot kick of divine reconnection. Or you know, maybe you did." Then She winked at me, and 10 million birds fainted with delight. "I mean, we are co-creators of each other, after all."

And just like that, She was gone. When I regained my senses, I saw that my wine bottle was full again, and there was a full plate of dark meat, awaiting my divine gratitude. Damn, She's good.