Joy Williams: 99 Stories of God

Sarah laughs at the angels and then denies that she did and is not quite forgiven.

Nay, but thou didst laugh, one of the angels says to her.

Why was Sarah given the opportunity for understanding, for evolution and transformation, the chance to kick herself up to the next level, when she was so dim-witted? She thought they meant an actual child, a baby!

They did not mean an actual child, a baby.

Still, anyway, if you take it literally, as you might, as well as morally, allegorically and mystically, why did God want to exact that dreadful sacrifice once the child was born?

It was Abraham’s idea to make the poor, unsuspecting kid, Isaac — whose name may or may not mean laughter actually — carry wood, the very wood that would incinerate him, up to the altar. That was Abraham’s rather unnecessary contribution to the story, not God’s.

Finally, God stepped in and said, No, you don’t have to do it, and just in time.

In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel was poised to launch nuclear warheads — the Temple Weapons — rather than suffer defeat at the hands of the Arabs. At the time, Israel had at least thirteen twenty-kiloton atomic bombs — the Hiroshima bomb was sixteen kilotons. Armageddon was avoided only when the U.S. secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, acting in the vacuum left by the travails of his “drunken friend,” President Richard Nixon, authorized an emergency resupply of high-tech, though conventional, weaponry to the Israelis.

Prime Minister Golda Meir said:

“We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.”

Jakob Boehme was a German mystic to whom God revealed himself in a ray of light being reflected in a tin plate. Some describe it as a pewter plate, though after all pewter is merely a number of alloys, including lead, of which tin is the main component.

So it was light striking a tin plate and Boehme saw God. In an instant he experienced the total mystery of God.

This was the revelation upon which all his writings are based. For years he did nothing but painstakingly attempt to translate this vision’s shattering significance into language.

Boehme had a wife and six children and they lived in poverty. His wife was not terribly supportive of his fantasizing about God, preferring that he provide for his family and put food on the table. Fill those tin plates with food.

Perhaps it was the very fact that the plates were empty that allowed Boehme to witness God so clearly.

After his first book was published, a wealthy man, believing Boehme to be a genius, became his patron, taking care of all his financial difficulties, totally supporting all those children and the complaining wife.

This act of generosity destroyed Boehme. His later writings are full of resentments and puzzlements. They became dull, slack, and repetitive. He no longer had to struggle with the tedious outward realities that opposed his inner experience of a manifesting God.

On his tomb is an image of God expressed like this:

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which is sad, after all he strived to do.

The Lord was in line at the pharmacy counter waiting to get His shingles shot.

When His turn came, the pharmacist didn’t want to give it to Him.

This is not right, the pharmacist said.

In what way? the Lord inquired.

In so many ways, the pharmacist said. I scarcely know where to begin.

Just give it to him, a woman behind the Lord said. My ice cream’s melting.

It only works 60 to 70 percent of the time anyway, the pharmacist said.

Do you want to ask me some questions? the Lord said.

You’re not afraid of shingles, are you? It’s not so bad.

I am not afraid, the Lord said.

Just give Him the shot for Pete’s sake, the woman said.

Have you ever had chicken pox?

Of course, the Lord said.

How did you hear about us? the pharmacist said.

The Lord had always wanted to participate in a Demolition Derby. Year after year he would attend the one-day summer event on a particular small island where junked cars, gutted and refitted for the challenge, would compete. He studied the drivers’ techniques carefully. It was mayhem! Usually the drivers would prepare their wrecks themselves, but there was also a raffle where a neophyte could win the chance to drive a donated wreck. A hundred raffle tickets were available each summer. They cost ten dollars each.

Once the Lord bought ninety-nine tickets but his name wasn’t drawn. If He hadn’t been the Lord, He would have suspected someone was trying to tell Him something.

He persisted, however, and one year he won.

You should wear long pants and boots and a long-sleeved shirt, you got that stuff? He was asked.

I do, the Lord said.

A helmet’s always a good idea too, He was told.

The Lord’s vehicle was a pink Wagoneer. The Wagoneer recognized the Lord immediately and couldn’t fathom what this could possibly mean. In terms of herself, that is, the Wagoneer.

She had once had a happy life of dogs and children, surfboards and fishing rods. Oh the picnics! The driftwood fires! Then it had all been taken away.

And now this.

A child was walking with a lion through a great fog.

“I’ve experienced death many times,” the lion said.

“Impossible,” the child said.

“It’s true, my experience of death does not include my own.”

“I’m glad.”

“I’ve had near-death experiences, however.”

“Quite a different matter,” the child said.

“Shall I tell you what it felt like?”

The fog was so thick, the child could not see the lion. Still, the fog was pleasant, as was their ascent through it.

“I was possessed, overwhelmed, consumed, filled up by a blessed, utterly unknown presence,” the lion said.

“Was it …” the child hesitated, searching for the right word “… consoling ?”

“Yes,” the lion said. “An inexplicably consoling irony filled my heart.”

“Will I experience the same, do you think?”

“I don’t know,” the lion said, a little afraid for them both for the first time. “Perhaps not.”

“I would not know what irony is,” the child said.

There was a game they liked to play when they were midway in life’s journey, but still healthy, still lustful and keen.

It was: Who could get you to cry in the fewest words?

Of course, some of the best effects were made when everyone was drunk.

He remembered this girl had a good one once.

The last whale swam deeper …

But one of the best was a line from Chekhov’s Three Sisters.

You mean, I’m being left behind?

He couldn’t remember many others. They hadn’t played the game in years.

The Lord was living with a great colony of bats in a cave. Two boys with BB guns found the cave and killed many of the bats outright, leaving many more to die of their injuries. The boys didn’t see the Lord. He didn’t make His presence known to them.

On the other hand, the Lord was very fond of the bats but had done nothing to save them.

He was becoming harder and harder to comprehend.

He liked to hang with the animals, everyone knew that, the whales and bears, the elephants and bighorn sheep and wolves. They were rather wishing He wasn’t so partial to their company.