Gazing up at the stars that cloudless summer night, I felt compelled to speak.

“Hi God,” I said.

I didn’t believe in God. I had no faith at all. Then again, nobody I knew had any faith in me, and I existed as far as I could tell, so I reasoned it was worth a try.

“God,” I said, “I’ve made a mess of things.”

I paused: no answer. I took this as a cue to continue.

“Really badly. So, I was just wondering. Could you maybe help me fix everything? Make it all better? Somehow?”

“No,” said God, “Not really. Sorry.”

“Oh,” I said.

“I am sorry,” said God.

“No, it’s fine,” I said. “I didn’t really… I mean, I just thought it was worth asking.”

There was an awkward pause. I wanted to leave but… How do you leave the presence of God? He’s omnipresent. You can’t walk away from Him, you’d just be walking towards Him at the same time. So I just stood there for a bit.

“I could give you some advice, if you’d like, ” said God, breaking the silence. “For what it’s worth.”

“Right. Er… yeah, ok,” I said, “Why not?”

And he whispered in my ear. It was good advice.

It wasn’t really applicable to my current situation, but it was good to know that, if somewhere further down life’s winding path I was to get attacked by a grizzly bear, I’d know what to do.

“Thank you, God, ” I said. And he was gone.

Thinking about it, the last time God sorted out a big mess it involved carpenting a nice man to death over a long weekend, so I could see why he’d be reluctant to intervene in this case.

Me, I’d have considered it.

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The Big Mess by Harris
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