Bill worked for a bible publisher.
When out and about people would say to him in jest, ‘how’s
God these days?’
‘Send Him my regards!’
To which Bill would reply, ‘sure, but you’ll have to pay for
the postage’.
Heaven is a long way away (perhaps).
Meanwhile, other more earnest types would ask him, ‘so do you believe in God?’
To which Bill would rejoinder, ‘no, and I don’t believe in
Ghosts either’.
This was one of Bill’s favourite retorts.
It never failed to amuse and bemuse, was often met with
nervous laughter, after which whoever it was who asked the question would
totter into the next room to recharge their glass.
And Bill would smile.
Bill understood God was a concept, alive and well somewhere
in his head, just as any old Ghost, but that God was not flesh or blood, as
more earnest types perhaps wanted to believe, or un-believe; a man with a
pointy beard and the power to levitate you six feet off the ground, in the act attracting flocks of blinded admirers.
The latter was the God the new atheists loved to hate, and
they had only scorn for anyone who purported to be something of a devotee.
And yet Bill also knew that if he was ever in mortal danger, he would more than likely pray to God (the concept), for human beings need
something to fall back on: moments in life can be very, very lonely (tap the
side of your head - the show is, let’s face it, in there).
Moreover, if there was the thought of a Ghost lurking at the
end of a dark corridor, Bill accepted he would more than likely retreat into
the sanctuary of his bedroom, however much he said he didn’t believe in
ghoulish apparitions.
Because in the world of human beings ‘twas and is ever thus.
In the mind, the idea of God nourishes, and gives solace. The personification of God remains abstract
or irrelevant. He, or rather, It, does
not need a form, or for that matter, a house.
The concept of Ghosts haunts, and engenders fear. Nevertheless, their personification too, is
abstract and irrelevant. Although they
live in your loaf.
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