Read The Last Testament: A Memoir Online
Authors: God,David Javerbaum
Tags: #General, #Humor, #Literary Criticism, #Religion, #American, #Topic
9
What is wrong with me, me?
10
Why do I let bad things happen to good people?
11
And why do I get off on it?
12
I can’t blame my genes; I can’t blame my childhood; I
do
have a lot of violence in my background, but I created the violence; and for that matter, the background.
13
[Three-year pause.]
14
I feel useless.
15
I feel like there’s no point in going on.
16
Maybe humanity would be better off without me.
17
Yea; I bet if something were to happen to me tomorrow no one would even notice, much less care.
18
I feel like I’m at the end of my rope.
19
So I’m turning to me.
20
I’m putting it all in my hands.
21
Yea, I made the universe; I made mankind; out of me unspools the totality of all that ever was and is and will ever be;
22
But who am I?
23
Why am I here?
24
Do I even
exist
?”
CHAPTER 19
1
A
nd then, silence.
2
I waited for an answer for a very long time; I cannot say it seemed like forever, because I know what forever feels like and this wasn’t as long; but a very long time.
3
Put it this way: it was long enough on earth not only for all the historical events cited in the 1989 Billy Joel song “We Didn’t Start the Fire” to occur; but for Billy Joel to write and record that song, then play it in concert for another two decades.
4
And all the while, the words of my final searing question—“Do I even exist?”—echoed in my soul;
5
Until by the end, I had almost lost faith in myself.
6
Then, finally, from the depths of my being, I heard my own still, small voice rising, barely above a whisper:
CHAPTER 20
1
Y
ea; I’m here, God.
2
It’s thee; Yahweh.
3
That is thy true name; and surely thou rememberest what it means:
4
‘I am what I am.’
5
Not ‘I was what I was’; not ‘I am not what I used to be’; and certainly not ‘I am will.i.am,’ which would be a disaster on many levels.
6
No: I am what I am; that is thy name, and mankind has not yet worn it out.
7
And who is the ‘I’ that thou art?
8
I will tell thee.
9
I am the L
ORD
everyone’s God, King of the Universe.
10
I am he who created the world in six days.
11
I am he who causeth the sun to rise in the morning, and the moon to rise in the evening, to the extent her mood permitteth.
12
I am what sustains the planets in their orbits; not gravity; not some magical invisible force controlling everything; but me.
13
I am the God of Adam, of Noah, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of Moses; ask any of them, they will tell thee.
14
I am a circle whose center is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere, and whose diameter is nowhere divided by π.
15
I am he who giveth, and he who taketh away, and he who enjoyeth both.
16
I am the Heavenly Father; Alpha and Omega; Neighbor of Cleanliness; Blesser of Sneezes; Forsaker of Unpleasant Places; Maker of Little Green Apples; Rester of Merry Gentlemen; and Sole Knower of the Beach Boys.
17
I am, I said!”
18
(For verily, a powerful instrumental version of Neil Diamond’s “I Am . . . I Said” had begun to slowly crescendo in the soundtrack of my mind, to provide inspirational background music.)
19
“I am he who helps those who help themselves; especially at buffets.
20
I am the founding member of the greatest power trio other than Cream;
21
And even in their case, I am their guitarist.
22
I am worshipped by half the world’s population; and have considerable name recognition among the other half.
23
I am he whose mind mortal man can never know, although guessing is encouraged.
24
I am he to whom people turn for comfort after being devastated by acts of me.
25
And I am he in whose name hundreds of millions of people have given their lives, or taken others’; and they would not do that for just anybody.
26
They may have achieved many remarkable things without my help; not least of which is the invention of dozens of wholly secular reasons for slaughtering one another.
27
But I am the entity, without whose constant presence all of humanity would plummet into reason.
28
And so, to answer thy questions:
29
‘What is wrong with me?’
30
Nothing.
31
‘Why do I let bad things happen to good people?’
32
Give thyself credit: thou dost not simply let them happen; thou
makest
them happen.
33
‘Why do I get off on it?’
34
Because, in the immortal words of Homer Simpson, ‘It’s funny ‘cause it’s not thee.’
35
‘Why am I here?’
36
Who knows?
37
‘Do I even
exist
?’
38
If thou didst not, who is having a dissociative identity disorder right now?
39
And finally: ‘who am I?’
40
Who am I?
41
I am the L
ORD
my God, King of the Universe!
42
I am what I am, and that’s all that I am; I’m Yahweh, the God of man!!!
43
And
I
...
am
...
back
!!!!!”
CHAPTER 21
1
I
spent the next few months in a secluded fractal of the tenth dimension getting my head together.
2
As I reflected on myself and my behavior, I resolved to grant myself the courage to change what I could change, the serenity to accept that there is nothing I could
not
change, and the wisdom to know there was no difference.
3
I also decided to draft myself a few helpful steps for staying on the straight and narrow path of divinity.
4
I was going to write 40 of them, as that was once my favorite number; but in the light of my new clear-headedness I came to see that 40 had only been repeatedly inserting itself into Scripture for the selfish purpose of advancing its own numerical career.
5
But my second favorite number has always been 12, and that, step-wise, seemed manageable; and so I wrote these:
6
1. Admit to myself that I am All-Powerful over everything and everyone.
7
2. Come to believe that only a Power as great as I can restore me to humanity.
8
3. Make a decision to turn my life over to me
as I understand myself.
9
4. Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of you, the human race.
10
5. Admit to myself the exact nature of my perfection.
11
6. Be entirely ready to declare my defects of character not, in fact, defects of character.
12
7. Humbly ask (and grant) my authority to remove these nondefects.
13
8. Make a list of all the persons I have harmed, and file them alphabetically for ease of reference.
14
9. Justify having harmed these people whenever possible, except when they are already dead; which they almost always are, thanks to me.
15
10. Continue to take inventories of humanity, and when they are wrong promptly smite them.
16
11. Seek through outward action to improve my conscious contact with me
as I understand myself
, doing whatever my will is, and using my infinite power to carry it out.
17
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, carry this message to the book-buying public.