Dear God,
By: Mark Valentine
Tags: Self Improvement, Grief, Existentialism, Loneliness, Poetry

Dear God,

I feel a little silly addressing this to you as if You exist as that puppet figure laying in a manger of straw. But play along with me for a moment and act like You are at the North Pole, or in Heaven and have angels like Clarence Goodbody on staff. It is much more humanizing to pretend You have a human form (Zeus was badass!) than the Force that pushes the grass up in the Spring with mute smiles of gratitude before I walk over it with the boot-soles of my feet.

I am writing to inform You that I would like to take a time out for a while. I read somewhere that it is good to set boundaries around potentially-abusive relationships and create a safe distance until I can begin to love myself a little more. This year--2020--that You sent us--well, me in particular--can go fuck itself. I didn’t say You, God, I said the year. I would like to send it back and get a refund. I would like to start over. I know, that’s a hard one. I have read the poet who wrote his note to You in the previous century,

“May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love.”



Earth really IS the right place for love. And if You’re anything like me, I don’t want You to be rash and pluck me out of my miserable existence for something else You might have cooked up...all because I am ungrateful.



This is getting confusing already so I will be blunt. I don’t appreciate losing my family, my friends, my means, my good habits, and my path. I am not Job, nor was meant to be. And while we’re on the topic of Job (I know, I brought him up), why do we pronounce his name in English, ‘jobe’ and not like it is spelled, ‘job.’ Every time I write a treacly note on a student’s paper, saying, “Good job!” I think Job has nothing to do with this; he’s stuck in the middle of the Old Testament.



My frustration stems from what I thought was a healthy trajectory I was already on before all this madness came with the year, 2020. Actually, You might recall, You sent it early, December 30th, 2019, to be exact. I thought I was making positive changes to my life already. Sure, my wife was growing increasingly distant and aloof but I was bringing in a respectable paycheck, had plenty of guys to have coffee with all the time, was active in theater, did service work willingly, and my kids were there.



Look at me now? I live in a different County by myself in a house near the school that I teach online for and don’t need to be physically close to because of a pandemic spawned in another continent by an imbalance between bats and humans caused from the indecent surge in disrespect that our culture has placed on the planet that ultimately is driving our species to extinction (I know this because I skipped ahead in the Book of Revelations--the only Sci-Fi book in the Bible--and read between the lines). How dare the consequences of previous generations and of the civilization to which I am a part of stress biological boundaries, causing this lethal disease, impact my life!



Your silence between that last paragraph and now is deafening. I can see Your Mona Lisa-like smile of irony behind the grey cloud covering your Consciousness. Also, I have an inkling that You have set a boundary between us Yourself; that You have isolated me because I am beginning to abuse the boundary in our relationship. Very funny!



And very humiliating.



What I need to ask You to do, Dear God--and I hope You are still reading this--is please remove from me my own defects of character: namely, my brash regard for self-pity, my insanely selfish desire for things to go my way, my yearning for intimacy with at least one person (anyone, someone), my urge to be right rather than to be kind, and my impatience in finding Your answers.



On a good note, God, I am learning how to live with my emotional self, although I know I still have a long way to go there too.



I hope You can find time to honor my requests. I admit that it is easier for me to perceive You “out there” in the Heavens than it is to know that You have been in me, indwelling, the entire time. But by ‘placing’ You outside myself, I can thereby ignore You because I am so busy. Knowing You are with me, a part of me, this entire time deflates the pomposity of my ego and devalues my selfishness; plus, it means I have never really been isolated at all. Now I am on even less solid ground in requesting You to remove this God Awful year because, well, what’s wrong with being intimate with You? Why can’t I accept this shit-tsunami of a perfect storm of a year as just another year to be alive and experiencing joy inside of pain? What is the difference between giving and getting when it all returns to You...and I will return to that great Ocean of You eventually too?



This missive is almost as long as the four shortest books in the Bible, combined (III John, II John, Philemon, and Obadiah, equal 1,229 words). I close by expressing my respect for boundaries and the opportunities they give in growing healthy lives. Remember that poet I mentioned earlier? He also wrote in another poem, “Good fences make good neighbors.” I hope we can at least become good neighbors, God, and in the spirit of Neighborliness, I close, with respect and sincerity,



Jack Squat



P.S. I am enclosing a photo of Ollie; she’s the cat You sent to me via the Shelter. She, like my family, shuns me most of the time but here is a rare photo of our togetherness.



P.P.S. I am signing off with this honorific, a nom de plume, that expresses my elevated status in the Grand Scheme of Things.

P.P.P.S. 1057 words