HOT

“Let’s see,” God said. “Whom shall I forgive today?” She was sitting at our dining table, running her fingers down a long scroll like Santa Claus, deciding who’d been naughty or nice, or St. Peter deciding whether to open the pearly gates. God, hard at work, discerning the hearts of…of who? Where? Why?

I sat down across from her with my nicely-whitened coffee and watched. Granting forgiveness is a big job. I wondered if I was on the list of offenders, and if so, what I’d done to get there. Almost every day, I throw a blanket “Sorry” out to the universe–sometimes for my own hateful, selfish behaviors. Sometimes, more of a mass acknowledgement that we humans have really fucked things up.

After what seemed like an eternity, God stopped mumbling to herself and looked up. Her face was glowing. “That feels so darn good,” she said. “I should do that at least a couple times a day.”

“Do what?” I asked, trying to keep the envy out of my voice. I hardly ever see God looking this serene and happy. I felt like the customer in When Harry Met Sally who said “I’ll have what she’s having” as she watched Sally fake an orgasm over a plate of food.

God smiled, knowing exactly what I was thinking. “It is kind of orgasmic,” she said. “Forgiveness is like yoga for the soul. Rest for the weary. Truth for the inquisitive. So good.” She reached over and squeezed my shoulder. A friendly gesture, I guess, but her hands were like burning coals. My shoulder fell off. The intense warmth spread rapidly. Everything fell off. I would’ve screamed for help, but my voice was gone.

Whatever I had once been was now strewn all over the dining room floor—chunks of ego and defensiveness melting like ice. The hound of heaven, lapping me up. The insults and the injuries, the malice and the madness. For a fraction of a second, I loved my enemies. I loved my liquid self. I loved the scorching hot God—the strangest friend I will ever have.

“Thanks,” I thought.

“You’re most welcome,” God said. “You look good all puddled up like that.” She extended her foot, and with one exquisitely long toe, she touched the last of me. The toe glowed, sizzling, blistering, flaming hot.

“So that’s forgiveness?” I said, refusing to completely disappear.

“Yup,” said God. “So good.”