If you want to give God a laugh, tell him your plans

Friday 14th October 

I heard that phrase on Radio 2 the other day, I cannot remember who was singing, I wasn’t really listening, so apologies to whoever for using your clever phrase.  I don’t usually listen to Radio 2, but I was bored with 3 and 4 and gave 2 a whirl for a change.  Not that wonderful, a little bit too pop and twee for my liking, but that phrase just leapt out at me.  “If you want to give God a laugh, tell him your plans”  Now, as you know, I am not a believer at all really; far too rational to suspend common sense enough to believe all that miracle and life after death stuff.  I remember a long conversation I had with a vicar called Diarmid, a friend of Edwards’, and incidentally a son of a vicar too; (I wonder if that had anything to do with his choice of vocation) the point of Diarmid’s argument was that it was exactly that suspension of rationality, the leap of faith, that was required in order for the word of God to begin to make sense.   Hmmm!!! The same feeling I get whenever I watch a Magician; I can admire the sleight of hand, and am sometimes amazed at the cleverness and I cannot always work out how it was done, but I am even more amazed that so many people actually believe it is some sort of Magic.

Just as I am amazed at peoples’ gullibility with the supernatural, ghosts, mind-readers, horoscopes and such like; can they not see that it is all nonsense.  But just like religion, powerful nonsense I am afraid,  but not afraid of, I hasten to add.  And I think that fear is the key to all this belief stuff, the fear that we may actually be alone amidst all of this turmoil that is called life, and so the comfort of Religion is just that, “Don’t worry my child, you are not alone.”  Well, I think that sadly we are all alone; except that we have each other and the most wonderful thing (God’s gift – if you will) is that we can communicate; our ideas, our hopes and our fears.  And it is surely by communication that the world will get better, and possibly begin to grow up and give Religion the scrutiny it deserves.

There was a song which Adrian used to play, I wish I had paid more attention but I really cannot remember who it was by, an American I am sure.  The premise of the song was that God was laughing to himself and reflected that he loved humans so much because ‘they run around in the desert and worship me all day long’, when God couldn’t give a toss about the little toys he had created. What a nice way to tie up all the believers and non-believers in one go. Yes, God did create the world, and all we find in it, but then he got bored with it all and wandered off somewhere else in the Cosmos, and left us to sort out the mess.

So, I remind you “if you want to give God a laugh, tell him your plans”.  Try it and see, and after you have prayed, cup an ear to the sky and if you are really lucky you can hear God’s little chuckle. But it might be a seagull.