What to do with the Minutes and Years

“God,” I said while I gazed at my elevated feet clad in thrift store Christmas socks. “You’ve bothered me since I was four years old. Is it really necessary to keep doing that?” My mood wasn’t entirely God’s fault. For reasons obvious to a certain group of us, I had googled holy writings about God’s preferred treatment of the poor and hungry. Sure enough, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist…The writings from faiths all over the face of our little planet tend to agree on this point.

FEED THEM.

The average citizen may not realize that globally, every year over three million children die of starvation, malnutrition, and diseases that prey on the underfed. This is not something I want to realize either. This means God’s heart breaks three million times each year. Every hour that passes, tra la la, we lose 312 youngsters. Give or take. And that’s just children.

These simple statistics put me in a very bad mood. And it gets worse when I try to consider my role in all this. I had a nice, tasty breakfast. I have a couple of warm places to live. I have a lot of diplomas, good friends, loving family, and an impressive array of used snow boots. The few poor people I have any contact with bother me. The starving people I see on the news upset my stomach.

What to do? My supposedly-elected officials face a ridiculous amount of pressure, but it isn’t pressure to reduce suffering, clean up our toxic messes, provide better education, health care, or safety. Nope. It is pressure to reduce the amount of money the wealthy (me included) contribute to the common good. We are insistent about this. We don’t like taxes.

“How long do you plan to rant?” God asks. “And when you’re done, could we do some painting or play a party game or something?”

God and I have a stare-down. God wins. I get out the brightest colors in my collection and slather pink, orange, and lavender across the blankest wall I can find. I streak my hair red and blue. I sketch a tree on an ugly shelf and imagine spring arriving in neon green. I color my sadness yellow and my anger purple. My self-pity is burgundy now, with just the faintest suggestion of fuchsia. Around the shoulders, the immense, muscular, trustworthy, buff, and ready shoulders of Creation-infused-Creator, there’s a flax golden glow. And I know. I just know.

“I’ll do what I can,” I say.

“Yes,” God says. “I know.”