I believe in a Supreme Being: a supreme force of nature and energy; something greater than me; something greater than us; something greater than here and now.
But there are limits to my belief.
As a business plan, it simply does not make sense for the “Great I Am” to be sitting around making each and every person in His image from scratch. Take a moment to visualize the wasted time, effort and material. It’s simply mind-boggling — and what does He do with the scraps and dysfunctional ones? Wouldn’t that indicate there are huge warehousing problems — especially if He is trying to maintain the entire collection?
Ordained messengers continue to entice followers with visions of posh surroundings, concierge service, and an existence of luxuriant decadence. Staffing other than the gatekeeper is never mentioned; at best it sounds like a cruise brochure. However, without adequate staffing, it feels like a bait-and-switch come-on from this side of the altar. Even standardized hell would require a skeleton staff. Although I suspect that it is less fire and brimstone tourism and more regional landfill-ish.
My early training attempted to instill the belief that He is a saver, but only planned for two facilities. Wouldn’t you think that after the first several thousand years He would have figured out recycling? Look at the current production rate — this is not a cottage industry!
Perhaps the problem is that our mutually-shared and variously-named Supreme Being started off like a ball of fire with a raft of great ideas and passionate resolve, but became bored shortly after the original model hit the showroom floor. Rather than just stop production entirely — like the guy in charge of dinosaurs did — it looks like He decided to turn over manufacturing to some meandering contract helpers who were not unionized and would work for a pittance. Obviously, when that type of decision-making is the basis of business planning, quality control goes right out the window.
On the other hand, it is conceivable that The Big Guy is perfectly satisfied with the status quo and simply chooses not to invest in research and development. How else are we to explain the lack of new and improved models in the last 10,000 years? Admittedly, product upsizing has been the trend over the very long term, but we all recognize that bigger is not always better.
Since there is no evidence of anything along the lines of real innovation that would improve the current universal model there are only two conclusions: R&D is ignored and therefore unfunded, or He hired a bunch of buddies to develop a sustainable business plan and they turned out to be incompetent, like hired relatives who lack the smarts to do the job.
Either way, no one on staff seems capable of figuring out how to make a human being that won’t go all creaky with age.
Speaking from my own personal experience, and it is lengthy, if the current model is not the result of mismanagement but a deliberate business decision for planned obsolescence, I am offended.
Is this the free market at work? Could the current state of affairs be the result of supply-side marketing?
After all, why invest in upgrades if there is no competition? Just focus on keeping labor costs down and profit margins up.
Sit back and enjoy the wealth, or hobby, as the case may be.
But a shocking thought occurred to me. It is one of scale, based on my perception of an unlimited universe.
Maybe, just maybe, “The Great I Am” is just a teenage boast. Maybe the Almighty really isn’t all that great.
What if we are just some sort of 4-H project?
What if this is His best work?
What if there is a really big cosmic fair coming up, where every Supreme Being can enter Their creation?
Imagine, our neophyte Almighty has done His best. Perchance He feels great pride completing the entry form and presenting His project on Judgment Day.
If that is the case, perhaps I should cut Him some slack. Maybe He really did give it His Great-I-Am all.
But, honestly, do you see His entry bringing back any blue ribbons in this millennium?
Award-winning humorist Carolyn Wiley lives quietly, for the most part, in Longbranch.
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