God And Santa Claus

I remember a time in the bathtub when it dawned on me that there were two old bearded men in the sky watching my every move; God and Santa Claus. Not only that, but those two old men were judging everything I did. It made me feel creepy and embarassed. I couldn't even fart without those guys knowing. I wondered if they could read my mind, too, in which case they'd both know that the real reason I was suddenly washing myself with such zeal was because Christmas was around the corner and I wanted an Easy Bake Oven. But then I thought, God and Santa are busy guys. That's why Santa has helpers and God has angels; so they can delegate. This meant that I was probably only being watched by an elf and an angel. And if it was a girl elf and a girl angel, then it wouldn't be so embarassing having them see me naked. Of course, I could ask about this at Sunday school; but it seemed like my questions annoyed our teacher, Miss Davis. One day, she even took me aside and said, "You know, Gael, a little sarcasm goes a long way." This was confusing, because I didn't know what the word "sarcasm" meant. That was the day she told us the streets in Heaven were paved with gold. "Do they have cars?" I asked. "Or are they still driving chariots like in the books? If I were an angel, I'd just fly around." Then there was the time Miss Davis explained that even though Jesus was dead, he was everywhere. This was an interesting new concept to me, so I began applying it. "So, Jesus is in my shoe? And in my pencil, too?" I asked. Other kids joined in, "Is he on the moon? Is he in my ear?" "Yes, kids," Miss Davis told us, " He's even right here with us now." A hush fell over the room until I blurted out, "Is he in Hell?" But that one seemed to bug Miss Davis, and I never got a clear answer. The thought of the devil scared me, thanks to hearing about movies like "The Excorcist" and "Damien", but I had a hard time believing in Hell. For one thing, eternity was a long time; I couldn't even stay mad at my sister for more than a day, so how could God stay mad at me forever? And if I pissed him off so badly, wasn't it his fault? He made me, after all, so he must've made my faults, too. It just didn't add up. On the other hand, Heaven sounded as boring as hell from the descriptions we got in Sunday School. I didn't care what the streets were paved with, floating around in robes and playing the harp for eternity seemed like it would get old after a while. I did like the Bible, however; at least I liked the pictures they had in the one that was chained to the stairway at the laundromat. I'd sit quietly and study those pictures while Mom sorted clothes. My favorite illustrations depicted skies with stunning shafts of light coming out of them, Angels with halos, and horn sections in the clouds (which I always pictured sounding like my Dad's Herb Alpert records). But there was one picture that gave me the creeps. It showed Abraham about to plunge a knife into his son, whom he had bound and placed on an altar. The first time I saw it, Mom explained the story behind it, reassuring me that, "God doesn't do that any more, honey. That's the old testament." Life sure was different in the old testament; people lived for centuries and knew God on a first name basis. He was so accessible back then; that is, until Jesus came along. That's when God - in a typical middle management pitfall - became more remote and lost contact with his people. When you think about it, God was not exactly mentally stable in the old testament. He certainly had an anger management problem, the way he was smoting people left and right; poor Onan got it just for masturbating. In fact, if you read the Bible with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in mind, you can find a lot of behaviors to classify. Then again, what do I know? My family quit going to church when I was 11 or 12. When I asked Dad why, he told me, "I gave up Church for Lent," and although I didn't quite understand, I left it at that.