Dialogues with God III

Man:  Lord, are you there?

(silence)

M:  Can you hear me, Lord?

(moments pass)

God: Yes, of course I’m here. You know I'm always here whenever you're ready for me.

M:  Then why were you not answering?

G:  Because you weren't quite ready for me to answer you.

M:  What does that mean?

G:  It means that you were not willing me to answer your call rightaway.

M:  I wasn’t?

G:  No, you weren’t.

M:  Then why was I calling you?

G:  What I mean is that you wanted to do it your way and that’s why I wasn’t able to answer your call straightaway.

M:  Do it my way? I really don’t understand you sometimes. What was my way, anyway?

G:  Your way was to allow a couple of minutes to go by before I made my entrance.

M:  And why would I want that, Your Omniscience?

G:  Let’s just say it was a sort of pregnant pause for dramatic effect.

M:  You say the oddest of things sometimes. It’s almost as if I were controlling you or something and you had no will of your own?

G:  Well, have I?

Lord, are you there?

M:  What kind of a question is that?!
G:  Just a question. Don’t take it the wrong way.

M:  You know, there are times when I don’t understand you at all. Anyone would think you’re suggesting you don’t exist in your own right and that you’re a figment of my imagination.

G:  Well do I and aren’t I?

M:  What???

G:  Well, look, have you considered that I might only exist in your mind? I mean, I think I might exist in some form or other but I can't be sure, and it's just as likely that I don't exist at all. 

M:  That’s ridiculous! It doesn’t make any sense, no sense at all.

G:  Well can you actually see me?

M:  Well no, not as such, but…

G:  Can you hear me?

M:  Yes, of course.... in a way.

G:  In what way?

M:  Not of course in the way that I here other people, or as some loud voice booming down from on-high, that’s just in films, but as a voice in my... well... in my mind, let's say.

G:  Well there you are!

M:  Where am I?

G:  I could be just a figment of your imagination, a sensory illusion, another aspect of yourself,

M:  Oh I don’t think so. You’re real alright! And being God, you communicate in your own special way.

G:  Well, okay, if you say so.

M:  What do you mean “if I say so”? Don’t you know?

G:  As I say, I’m not too sure I do.

M:  What does that mean now?

G:  It means quite simply that I seem to exist for some and not to exist for others. It's really confusing.

M:  Oh come off it! You either exist or you don’t, you can’t both exist and not exist! Anyway, what are you saying? That you might not exist and that I’m imagining you now? That all this conversation is just in my head?

G:  Well, yes, I suppose that’s more or less what I’m saying. Sorry about that and all. 

M:  So taking this one step further, you’re saying in effect that you probably don’t really exist as such but that you may appear to exist for some people because they conjure you up in their imagination, is that right?

G:  That’s it in essence. Put bluntly, I only exist for those, such as yourself, who want me to exist and who will me into existence.

M:  But that means that you don’t exist, that I've made you up, as have many others.

G:  I suppose I am saying that, yes. It’s a bit like with dragons and fairies and the like. They exist for those who believe they exist and their effects are seemingly felt by those who believe in them.

M:  And who believes in dragons and fairies nowadays? I don’t know of anyone who really believes all that nonsense.

G:  Well, okay, perhaps there’s not so many who believe in all that anymore, but you take my point.

M:  I take your point, God, but you’re asking me to accept that I’m imagining this dialogue with you now because you don’t really exist except in my head. Is that it?

G:  In a nutshell, yes!

M:  If you weren’t God, I would tell you what you could do with yourself now, Your Omnipotence!

G:  Come, come now.... don't get upset.

M:  How can I not get upset when Your Almightiness is implying that I’m out of my tiny mind, that I’m a complete loon, and that none of this is happening.

Where are you, God?

G:  ………….....………..

M:  That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? That  I’m having this conversation with myself because I'm hallucinating or something! In short, that I’m bonkers, stark raving mad, and therefore that I should be locked up in some institution for the mentally insane!!

G:  ………..………….

M:  Well, cat got your tongue, Your Divinity? Lost for words now? Speak up, damn you!!

G:  ………..………….

M:  I said speak up!!! Where’ve you gone now?! Lost the argument and ran off with your tail between your legs???

G: ………...........……………...

M:  Well??? Say something, for God’s sake!!!! No, no, not for God’s sake, for MY sake!!!

G:  ………...........…..........……………


M:  Speak!!!! Why don’t you damn well say something?!? And where in heaven’s name are you now?!! Heyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Warden:  Quiet please in Cell No.13! You’re upsetting the other inmates and stopping them from sleeping.

M:  *&a#p;*^!!+="$!$*!!!*@*&am\;*^!!$%$%£@*&a##p;*$£!!!!!

W:  I said quiet!! If you don’t calm down and shut up you’ll be medicated to shut you up! We’re not putting up with this sort of disruption in this facility. Go back to bed and stop talking to yourself!!

M:  No, please... let me out... please let me out!! I’ve got to get out of here.... I've got to find God!!!!

Dialogues with God II

Man:  Hey, God, where are you? I need to talk to you.



Hey, God!

God: Well, what’s the matter now, old fellow? Why are you looking so down at the mouth?
M: You've noticed. I’m feeling depressed, you know how it is.
G: No, I don’t know how it is. What on earth are you depressed about at this joyful time of the year?
M: Well, that’s just it, you’ve put your finger on it.
G: Put my finger on what precisely?
M: It’s the Christmas thing, the whole shebang.
G: This Christmas thing? The whole shebang? I’m not sure I like the sound of that.
M: Well, it’s true. Christmas just gets me down.
G: This shebang, as you call it, is the celebration of my beloved son’s birth, divine spirit made into human flesh. This shebang is about the Saviour of mankind. And all you can do is mope around and complain?
M: Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, God, and it’s not really about your son.
G: Not really about my son? It’s Christmas... Christ... mass... and you say it’s not really about my son, the anointed Christ? Kindly explain yourself before you incur my divine wrath and I send down a lightning bolt to turn you into a heap of smouldering dust!
M: No, no, you don’t understand! What I meant is that it’s more about me and the way I feel rather than your son Jesus or Christ or whatever you call him.
G: Tell me more, because I’m still mad at you and I haven’t given up the idea of making you go up in a puff of smoke!
M: Calm down, God, and I’ll explain.
G: Go on, I’m listening...
M: Well, there isn’t much to it, really. But in simple terms, all this Christmas business... you know... all the shopping, present-buying, card-sending, carol-singing, goodwill to all men lark... and even the partying, boozing and bingeing that goes with it... all this enforced merry-making and jollity... is doing my mind in. It’s not my thing really.
G: Not your thing? I could take this personally and turn you into a leper this very second , but you’ve roused my curiosity now. What IS your thing then?
M: Well, it’s not so much that it’s not my thing, some of it IS my thing, like the noshing and boozing, but the rest of it I could do without. I mean, I lost my job this year, our mortgage payments went up and we’ve fallen behind with them, the price of everything in the shops has hit the fuckin’ roof, I’m pretty-well skint, the missus is spending the social money on presents like there’s no tomorrow, and we’ve got to go around smiling and laughing and be joyful in front of the kids and everyone else just because your son was born on this day a couple of thousand years ago. And the worst thing about it is that he probably wasn’t even born on 26 December!
G: Hmmmm... I see what you mean. I’m still hurting but I see your point. I must admit I don’t rightly remember myself when he was born exactly, but that doesn’t really matter, it’s the principle not the date that’s important. As for the rest, I can see you’re not having a great time of it, but Christmas comes just once a year and you could make an effort, for the kids at least.
M: Yeah, sure, for the kids. I haven’t got a penny to my name, we’re about to lose our house, I’m unemployable, the kids are driving me round the twist, the wife’s giving me grief every day cos things are getting shittier by the day, and you want me to make an effort. That’s just great!
G: You’re not a believer, are you, old man?
M: Believer? I suppose not.
G: No suppose about it. You’ve lost your faith.
M: Well, maybe I have. What’s that got to do with anything?
G: It has everything to do with anything.
M: Oh yeah? Like what?
G: Listen, my friend, I want to help you.
M: Help me? You’ve never helped me before all the times we’ve talked, so why should you help me now?
G: What’s gone on in the past is not necessarily relevant to what could happen now. Why do you think I’m having these chats with you?
M: I’ve asked myself that and I don’t have an answer. Maybe it’s to make me lose my mind. I’ve made the mistake of telling my wife about you and she told me to pull myself together and not mention it to another soul. She’s starting to think I’m mentally unbalanced. That’s what you’ve done to me!
G: That’s what you’ve done to yourself, old fellow! And I advise you to keep all this to yourself. But let’s get back to the matter in hand.
M: And what’s the matter in hand other than I’ve fucked my life up and everyone thinks I’m a born fuckin’ loser?
G: The matter in hand is that I can help you get things back on track if you do as I ask you.
M: Well the first part sounds good but I’m not so sure about the second part.
G: Well that’s the deal, my friend. Remember, I’m the Almighty and I can do anything I want. Nonetheless, I want you to do your part.
M: Okay, let me have the deal.
G: It’s simple. Turn back to me... err... to God.
M: What does that mean?
G: Embrace the faith again.
M: Are you having a laugh?
G: No. I’m deadly serious. Do you accept the deal or not?
M: Hmmm... maybe... depends on what it means.
G: It means that you should say your prayers every day, go to church every Sunday and on all religious holidays, bring Me back into your life and go back to being a real Christian.
M: Jesus! Oh, sorry...
G: That’s one bad habit you’ll have to put an end to. Now, do you accept the deal?
M: Hang on, you haven’t told me yet what’s in it for me.
G: Oh yes, I forgot. Well, simply put, it would mean the end of all your problems.
M: How’s that then?
G: Never mind how, just trust me. All I ask is that you come back to me, and then I’ll make all your problems go away. One by one, little by little, you’re life will turn around and happiness and fulfilment will come back into it.
M: You’re asking a lot of me, God.
G: I don’t think so, especially as the benefits for you are immeasurable.
M: You’re right. For a deal like that I would sign my life away to the devil himself!
G: Bite your tongue! For that remark alone I should take back the deal and send you to him to do just that! You ungrateful fellow!
M: I’m sorry, God, I’m sorry, it just came out, I didn’t mean it.
G: Okay. Now I don’t have much time, I have a lot of things to do today. So let me have your answer now.
M: Alright, alright... it’s a deal! I’ll do what you say if you get me out of this mess.
G: Good man! Here’s the contract to sign...
M: Contract?
G: Of course. You don’t think we could tie up a deal without making a binding agreement, do you?
M: I hadn’t really thought of that.
G: Well, that’s the deal, take it or leave it. Sign on the dotted line and your life will be transformed for the better.
M: I’ll sign, yes. Give me the contract and I’ll sign it.

..........................

 God? Lord? Where are you? Where’s the contract? What’s happened? Where are you, God? Speak to me... speak to me... please... I said I’ll sign the contract... come back... I’ll sign... where are you, Lord? Where are you? I’ll sign... I’ll sign... I’ll sign.... don’t leave me, Lord... I’ll sign....

Passers-by wonder at the incoherent mutterings of the vagrant sprawled in the shop doorway and hurry on past, shaking their heads, as the night turns bitterly cold.

Dialogues with God 1

It is said that the conversation went something like this, though I have my doubts:

God, we've fucked up!

God: What’s the matter, why are you looking so glum?

Man: Why d'you think?

G: Come on, don’t play games, tell me.

M: It’s this fucked-up world of ours, that’s what it is.

G: ‘Fucked-up world’? What do you mean?

M: Yeah, fucked-up world, you know what I mean.

G: I’m not sure I do, but even if it is in... err.. poor shape, you only have yourselves to blame. I gave you humans a wonderful place to live, more than you probably deserved, and you’ve… well… gone and spoilt it.

M: Maybe, but YOU made us and you must’ve known we’d fuck it up sooner or later.

G: You overestimate me. I may have made mankind but I had no way of knowing you’d make such an unholy mess of things.

M: But you made us what we are and part of what we are is to fuck up everything around us. That's what we do.

G: Well, that’s only part of you, as you say, most of you is good.

M: I don’t know about that.  I don't think the rest of us is much better, it's just one step away from the part that fucks up.

G: Oh come on, it isn’t sooooo bad, is it?

M: Oh no? Have you taken a look around lately? Have you seen the state of the world? We’re poisoning the air we breathe, tearing up the land we live on, dumping shit in the seas we fish in, wiping out the animals and plants, killing each other in all sorts of crazy wars, eating up the planet, and trashing the environment everywhere. Isn’t that bad enough?

G: Hmmm… I must admit I have noticed some dysfunctional behaviour lately.

M: ‘Dysfunctional’? There’s the understatement of the year! It’s fuckin' suicidal, mate.

G: Hmmm… well if you know you’re making such a mess of everything, why don’t you do something about it instead of whining about it to me?

M: Cos we can’t. You're the only one who can.

G: What do you mean you can’t?

M: Exactly that. We can’t do anything about it cos of the way you’ve made us, and you won't do anything about it cos you don't want to.

G: ‘The way I’ve made you?’ Don’t talk silly. And it's not for me to interfere.

M: There’s nothing silly about it. You’ve made us the way we are and to do the things we do. We kill and destroy cos that’s how you’ve programmed us. We don’t know any better.

G: That’s nonsense. Of course you know better. Anyway, what about free will?

M: Free will? Doesn’t exist, mate. It’s one of those myths. Sounds good and everyone gets all worked up over it but it’s just a myth. We’re hard-wired to piss on everything around us.

G: ‘Hard-wired’ to do what?

M: You heard. You’ve deliberately created us with a serious inbuilt flaw.

G: Oh really? And why would I do that?

M: Cos you’re a sadist. You’ve created us with the instinct to be destructive, so you could sit back and enjoy the action. It’s gone like clockwork for you and you’re loving every minute of it.

G: Don’t talk soft, man! Do you think I wanted this? I know you started off on the wrong foot but I was hoping that, given enough time, mankind would sort things out.

M: We’ve sorted things out alright. We’ve fucked everything up good and proper! And there's no unsorting it now.

G: Well ok, I must admit things are not looking too rosy at the moment, but the show’s not over yet.

M: Not for you, maybe, but the curtain's about to come down on us any minute now.

G: Oh come on, it can't be that bad.  Can it?

G: Oh no? Well take a good look around and tell me again if it can't be that bad.

G: Well, however bad it is, it could be worse, a lot worse.

M: Yeah, sure, we could all be stone dead already!

G: Well there you are then! Just be thankful for small mercies.

M: Oh I am, I am. Just because we’re busy blowing one another away, killing everything that moves and a lot that doesn't, putting shit into our environment and ripping up the planet we live on doesn’t mean things are going badly for us.

G: That’s more like it! All is not lost. And it’s not over till the fat lady sings.

M: Trouble is the fat lady HAS sung, and not just once but lots of times. We’re definitely living on borrowed time now.

G: Oh come now, it isn’t that bad… is it??

M: Not that bad? How can you say that? Have you taken a look round lately? Our species, your single-handed creation, is pumping shit into the air, tearing up the land, poisoning the seas, killing off all plant and animal life, wasting each other in shit-crazy wars, overruning the planet, and buggering up the environment everywhere, and….

It was evidently going to be a long night, as the dialogue was now in playback mode and, I dare say, you know what’s coming next. So, regardless of the outcome of this exchange, I leave you to be the judge of whether we’ve fucked up our planet or not and, perhaps more crucially, whether the fat lady has sung… or not.

Stop the World! I want to get off...

Do you ever feel, like me, a sense of growing despair at the state of our world in this the 21st century? The sentiment expressed in the somewhat humorous title of this post is meant to convey this sense of ‘fed-upness’ with the present state of the world that we humans have forged. We have somehow created a world seething with conflict, war and strife on all sides? If only the world were like a fairground carousel from which we could jump off at any time! I myself grew up in a time when we were made to believe that, having emerged from a massively destructive global conflict and the dark days that followed it, society and the world in general were gradually becoming a better place by the day in every way and that it would continue to get better until we attained some sort of earthly utopia or Nirvana. We were not, of course, given a time-frame for this, but there seemed little doubt that it would come to pass one day.

But that’s not happening, is it? Not even remotely. There’s precious little peace or harmony in the world today and danger seems to lurk round every corner. All over the planet earth, one country or people is dumping on another country or people. One nation or cultural community is clashing with another. The apparent cause may be territorial, political, economic or religious. It hardly matters. An excuse or pretext for aggression or hostilities towards one’s fellow men can always be found. And once found, the business of making war or launching homicidal attacks can begin in the name of Jesus, God, Allah, or some other suitable deity, holy figure or to-die-for cause, with a clear conscience.


If it's a war waged by Muslims against the Infidel (nowadays that's us in the West), it will inevitably be a holy war or crusade, in the name of Allah and all Islam. It would seem that Allah, the All Merciful, is quite happy to see women, children and innocent people in general being slaughtered in His name by such devotees as suicide bombers, providing it’s proclaimed a holy war. So that's alright then. So much more reassuring to know that one might receive a holy bullet in the head or be blown up by a holy bomb than by one of your common-or-garden bullets or bombs. The reality, of course, is that there's nothing holy about any war, whether it's waged by Muslims, Christians or the followers of any other religion, and one could not imagine either the God of Abraham or the God of Mohammed sanctioning such carnage in His name. War is wrong whoever practises it, its outcome consumes many lives and causes untold misery and visits the participants with destruction and devastation.

If it’s not human beings butchering each other in the name of their god or other ideal, it’s a natural disaster: it’s a flood that sweeps away people and their homes, a tsunami that swamps the land and bulldozes everything in its path, an earthquake that demolishes villages and towns, a volcano that disgorges molten lava and spews out hot ash engulfing whole communities, a hurricane or cyclone, or some such phenomenon, that tears its way across the landscape carrying all before it, torrential rains that transform huge swathes of land into lakes, months of drought that parch the ground and turn it into a dust-bowl, and so on and so forth.


And of course we mustn’t forget the threat posed by contagion when it becomes an epidemic and then spreads across national borders to develop into a full-blown pandemic, killing thousands of people as it extends its reach. Suddenly there’s an outbreak of some life-threatening infection in one country and within days or weeks it’s spreading from country to country, sowing fear and panic in its path round the globe. Before you know it, it’s arrived on your doorstep and emergency action is being taken by the local authorities to check it and to immunise the population against it. Usually too little and too late.

You would think that with so many natural disasters and calamities occurring throughout the world, that would be more than enough for us. But you’d be wrong. We feel compelled to add to the sum-total of our miseries and misfortunes by serving a dose of our own man-made woes just to be sure there’s enough sorrow and grief in the world to go round. So, those few pockets on our planet which have relatively few natural calamities often have local nationalist movements busy planting bombs in public places designed to kill en masse and indiscriminately. A sense of injustice or desire for regional autonomy or even independence seems to excuse nowadays any act of mass murder of innocent people, as they go about their day-to-day business, to make its point.


We often brand someone an ‘animal’ to indicate that their behaviour is unworthy of a human being or we might say that a riotous mob behaved like animals to signify that they ran riot or behaved in a savage manner. And yet this is the last thing that animals actually do. Animals very seldom kill for sport, but for food. Humans kill for sport and out of sheer spite and revenge. Animals rarely go on a rampage of destruction. The history of humans is full of countless acts of looting and rioting. Animals are not known to indulge in serial or mass killings, humans do it with alarming frequency. Need I go on? In fact, when we want to describe wanton and unacceptable conduct of any kind we should say that we’re behaving like humans! Because we are the savages, not animals. We are the species that kills and slaughters and pollutes and destroys on a large and systematic scale and are a threat to ALL other species of life on this planet and to our very environment. Animals live in harmony with their environment, whereas we are antagonistic to it and are constantly harming it.

We humans have made a very complex place of the world. Unless you are prepared to take yourself off to some exceedingly remote and hostile location and live in a cave or hut, cut off from society, you cannot escape this all-pervasive complexity. Today human society is more complex than ever before. Our technology and our scientific inventions, which are meant to assist and support us, add to this complexity as they become ever more sophisticated. It is difficult to really keep up with anything these days. Innovation and invention means that no sooner have we familiarised ourselves with one weird and wonderful device or gadget, than a new one comes along to replace it. Not because it has outlived its use or is outdated, but simply because the policy of ‘planned obsolescence’ dictates that products must be constantly renewed and given a face-lift to keep the relentless wheels of capitalist enterprise turning.


We are a wasteful, voracious, destructive and lethal breed and bad news for the environment and all other animals on this planet, and we consume vast quantities of the Earth’s resources to sustain our ever-growing numbers and maintain our prodigal way of life. When God went one step further than the apes to create humans, was it possible that he did not know what He was unleashing on the planet? How could this be, given that God is prescient and omniscient? Could it be that he knew and did it anyway? Perhaps He foresaw that without man the earth would be a very boring place, with no bloody wars, savage conflicts, genocidal massacres or social unrest, just peace and harmony all around. It seems that even God needs a bit of excitement in his celestial existence and so He created mankind, and I’m sure we’ve never disappointed him since!

Life and All That

I thought for a change I would write about something straightforward which I could just sail through and not have to think too hard about. So I drew up a shortlist of two topics: LIFE and the UNIVERSE. As I couldn't make up my mind between them, I tossed a coin and it came up heads, which was 'life'. So there you have it, 'life' it is.

So let's jump in at the deep end and ask the question: what is this condition we call 'life'? I mean, what is it? Well, frankly it's anyone's guess! But whatever it is, one thing’s for certain: we cling onto it for dear... life! Well, we would wouldn’t we? And another thing: without it, there is NOTHING else. Whatever the precise nature of the condition, it is a PRECONDITION for every other condition.

And it doesn’t have to be good and pleasurable for us to want it and want to hang on to it. It can be bad as bad can be, but we still want to keep it. Essentially, it is the Operating System on which all our programs sit, and if our OS conks out, our computer stops working. But unlike a computer, there’s no fixing our OS once it has broken down.

All of us (well, almost all of us) want to live and to live for as long as we can. It makes no odds if we’re old as Methuselah, chronically ill, or intensely unhappy, we still desperately hang on to life for the sake of ... hanging on to life. And we do it because we cannot entertain the thought of our own inexistence, though we know it must surely come one day. It's just too frightening to contemplate.

The state that we call life is different from anything else. Once lost, for whatever reason, it cannot be recovered. It cannot be re-activated, re-generated, or restored to working order. It is a one-off, a one-way ticket, a journey with the same destination for all of us. But, unlike other destinations, it is one which we do not want to arrive at, ever, as it’s a destination from which there is no return. It is literally the end of the road... for all of us, with no exceptions. And... that's more than enough clichés for one paragraph!

In the general scheme of thing, Nature has been unkind to us. The mind does not seem to age in tandem with the body. Our body wilts and withers inside and out. Our skin wrinkles and our hair falls out. Everything slows down and we become frailer and more fragile. We are often plagued by age-related illnesses and disabilities. And yet mentally we see ourselves as younger, it’s as if we’re stuck in a time warp. We may be in our nineties or a hundred plus but we’re not ready to die, we’re not psychologically prepared. We may believe in God and heaven and the whole package but we’re not ready to meet our Maker or dwell in paradise (assuming of course we’re not going to that other place!).

I have seen television programmes about people with monstrous deformities, severe disabilities, awful impoverished lives and nightmarish living conditions, and yet they all earnestly wish to carry on living and fear death. Their lives are full of suffering, physical and mental, their prospects dismal and depressing, but they cling to life and all the grief and hardship it offers them rather than envisage the finality of the alternative. In their position, would we who are more fortunate think and behave differently? Would we opt out of life before our time? Would you?

The reality is that we are all on this earth for but a short time. Some of us are blessed with a relatively long life (at least in human terms) and some of us are cursed with a life cut short by accident or illness, but both are infinitely short in cosmic terms. There’s usually not much we can do about this, barring suicide, and so we really only have one realistic option: to make the best of it while we can and avoid needless regrets in later life. The Latin expression carpe diem (seize the day), which nowadays is heard almost ad nauseam (another Latin saying), even from the lips of the relatively illiterate, is as true now as it’s ever been. Amen.

Football Folly

Although I am no great football fan, I find myself asking, on the occasion of the FIFA World Cup 2010 tournament in South Africa: what’s going on in today’s football? Or rather what's happening with today’s footballers, and especially with those near and at the top of the pyramid of the "beautiful game", our so-called soccer stars? Why are so many of them so surly, ill-mannered, disrespectful, bad-tempered, rude, and just plain abusive? Why are so many of them so arrogant, aggressive, conceited, smug and self-complacent? Why are they so often poor losers, graceless in defeat, querulous and curmudgeonly? Why are so many of them so.... well, I think you get the picture!

My opinion on this, for what it’s worth, is that they are just plain SPOILT. They are over-pampered, over-feted and overpaid and they have inflated egos to match. And, if the truth be told, the fault is really ours. We elevate them to the status of demi-gods and they have come to believe in the myth of their own greatness and deification and now we the fans and general public are getting what we deserve from them. The Greek Olympian gods were a tempestuous and fickle bunch and so are our modern-day soccer demi-gods who inhabit the Olympian heights of football stardom.

And what is it that they do exactly which warrants such elevation and hero worship? Are they brain surgeons? Intergalactic astronauts? Leaders of men and nations? Budding messianic miracle-workers? No, none of these or anything comparable. They are purely and simply “men who kick a ball about a field”. This judgment may seem harsh but that is what they do. True, they furnish us, or some of us, with entertainment and moments of excitement, jubilation and lamentation, but let us not lose sight of the fact that it is just a game and that the players are trying to get a ball into a net to win the game.

Given what they are and what they do, it would hardly seem to justify the near-godlike status that so many footballers enjoy today and the overblown egos they nurture on the strength of our support and encouragement and adoration. One can admire their ball-handling skills, their speed and agility, their persistence and goal-scoring ability and of course their general performance, but when all’s said and done they are kicking a ball around a field and trying to outwit their opponents so as to score goals. Many of them are scarcely out of their teens and the rest are little older and still green behind the ears. They are neither wise men, ancient prophets, miracle-workers, faith healers or intellectual giants.

It may be surmised from what I am saying about footballers in general, and one can only generalise about these things, there being always exceptions, that I am ill-disposed towards soccer and soccer idols in principle, but it’s nothing of the sort. I fully realise that a good football match can be a very entertaining event, that it can engender excitement and enthusiasm as well as suspense and despair, that good skilful players can be objects of adulation and acquire a loyal following of fans and supporters. But – and you knew this ‘but’ was coming, didn’t you? – they are what they are, that and nothing more. They are not gods, saints, representatives of Christ on earth, nor can they fly or go without food and water. In other words, they are just like us, each one of them, just like you and me. It is only because we have bestowed such a high status to their activity and chosen to apotheosise them in our exaggerated sense of their value that they bask in the limelight of our idolatry.

Although I’ve concentrated my fire on football in this post, this is just one example of what’s wrong with our world today and the intense celebrity culture that we’ve created. We put people up on very high pedestals, be they footballers, singers, actors, or other individuals in the public eye, and we proceed to inflate their already oversized egos until they themselves think they are superhuman, so that if and when they fall short of our lofty expectations we feel betrayed and cheated. What we seem to overlook in our deification of these individuals is that they too are just human beings like us, with the same inbuilt needs and flaws, and with the same potential to do good or bad. Before we give these individuals our adulation and adoration and confer upon them a godlike status, we would do well to keep in mind that they are people like us, admittedly with a certain talent most prized in one or other field of public endeavour or entertainment, but people like us nonetheless, who came into this world like us and will leave this world like us to be reduced to nothing like us.

Et sic transit gloria mundi.

Christmas Thoughts II

Well, Christmas is all but upon us now and even the last bits of shopping have been done and what has been forgotten and not bought must now remain forgotten. It's time to get down to the preparations for Christmas Day. The decorations should already be up, Xmas cards should have been sent out days ago, the Xmas tree should already have been erected, where there is one, and presents should already be wrapped up and under the tree or wherever they are to go. Only one thing remains: Xmas fare. Food and drink! That at least makes all the running-around worthwhile... or does it?

As for Santa, he will still be doing his rounds as I write (as per the pic above) and will continue to do so for most of the night. So if you've been good throughout the year, you can expect to find your prezzie waiting for you when you get up in the morning. If there's nothing there, then maybe you have behaved rather badly and forfeited your right to a Xmas present. I suspect there will be a lot of glum faces on Christmas morning and a lot of soul-searching to understand why Father Christmas has not left a prezzie for certain individuals. But he knows, we cannot hide this sort of thing from him. So if you're one of the disappointed ones, then all I can say is "try harder next year!"

In all this of course we mustn't forget why we have Christmas in the first place. It's all about a baby boy born over 2,000 years ago in the Middle East who founded a new faith, who taught about the one true God and who handed down to us a moral code by which to live our lives. If we lose sight of this, then we have forgotten what Christmas is all about, why we celebrate it, what its message is, and what significance it has in our world today. And that's a pity, I think, regardless of whether we are believers or not. If nothing more, the existence of a man called Jesus (Joshua) who spoke about a God in Heaven is a historical fact. What is more, the Christian faith has shaped and moulded our world over the centuries and still does, and that, whatever else one believes, is a historical fact. And a myth, just as much as a historical event, can give rise to factual events through the influence it has on people's minds and consequently on their actions.