A Post-God World

I woke up one day to find that God had left our universe for a parallel one. He left a note on the planet on his way out.

It read: "Not what I want, but what you want."

It wasn't the most obvious thing. All the churches stayed open, Sunday worship happened as usual. But something seemed different.

These churches- God's houses- were not any less attended then usual, but they seemed emptier. They were not any darker than usual, but something appeared more obscured. There was no less rapport in the congregations, but they seemed lonelier.

I didn't notice at first. But I was walking through crowds at a rally against a ban on gay Marriage when I figured out what was different.

I saw a row of people at the rally promising an eternity of damnation to these sodomites, these disgusting perverts, who were so brash as to request legal marriage in the eyes of Lady Justice. Who, I might add, is atheist, or at least won't judge you.

I'm no expert on God, I thought to myself.

But in my mind I flashed back about two thousand years, to a city where one faith was about to father another. Birth of a faith from the death of a man. There's something symmetrical there.

A young man, not twenty years older than me, is crying in a garden. He is talking to his father. The young man knows his death is impending, but hopes his father might intervene. But in the end, his father, the man he was born to serve, convinces him that it is what is right.

The young man sighs, "Not what I want, but what You want."

His crime was dubious. It was something that certainly would not be illegal in America, for what it's worth.

But I suppose that's beside the point.

The young man was found. His punishment was death, in a humiliating and ruthless manner. Something that certainly would be considered cruel and unusual in America, for what it's worth.

But again that's irrelevant.

A few people thought they saw him, a few days after. Now returning to the present, a lot of people believe them.

I am at a college where, in my graduating class, less than half of the people believe that last bit.

Yet this is a Christian nation.

But that's beside the point.

I'm back at the rally. I realize that God had left when I realized that the line of people promising an eternity of damnation to these sodomites, these disgusting perverts, were not serving God. They were serving themselves.