Lunch With God At Alabama Jack’s

“Wednesday, one o’clock. You and Father Roger.
Alabama Jack’s.
I have a hankerin’ for crab cakes and beer.
Be there and bring you note pad.”

“What!?!,” I protested, not recognizing the voice 
on the other end of the call.
“Who is this?”

“God. Just be there.
It’s outta the way. No one will recognize me.”

Hey. What can you do when God wants beer and crab cakes at one of Florida’s most iconic institutions? 

He was already there when we arrived – an out-of-the-way table far from the entrance and overlooking the water. Flip-flops, khaki shorts and a great blue Bamboo Cay shirt (we asked the label). Pure Florida!

AH: Hi. First off, what do we call you… Creator? Lord? Almighty?

God: Thanks for meeting me here. One of my favorite places. Feels so much like the Florida Keys. “God” will do. It’s pretty universal. Muslims, Christians, Zoroastrians, Jews – although they usually drop the O when writing it and just put in a dash – G-d.

AH: But why are we here.?

God: Guys, I’ve had it. I’ve been watching your country for a while now and some of the… How can I say this?... Some of the crap I’ve been hearing from people using my name. What? I’m God. I can say “crap,” especially when it is. I’ve ordered crab cakes and calamari and ice tea for you guys – you’re driving.

God: Where do some of these folks get off with this stuff. I mean that woman in Florida saying “I hear a sound of victory. The Lord says it is done.” She’s screaming about “I hear victory, victory, victory in the corridors of Heaven” and goin’ on about  “angels being released… from Africa right now, from Africa right now, from Africa…. Angelic reinforcement.” And then she went on into jibberish. Guys, I’ve got news for her: There weren’t no angels going nowhere! Believe me they check in with me and I’m the One giving marching orders.

AH: Well, she has been pretty popular with the guy who used to be in the White House. She was supposed to be one of his “spiritual advisors.”

God: Advisers, schmedvisors! That’s Yiddish, you know. I’m pretty good with languages.

God: And that really ole guy on television – I know I’m no one to call someone “old,” but he’s ancient - who kept tellin’ folks he had it on divine authority “without question  [I don’t wanna use the guy’s name] is going to win the election.” Surprise!

AH: So what you’re saying….

God: And talk about chutzpah that priest in LaCrosse, Wisconsin who told people “You cannot be Catholic and a Democrat” and if they supported the Democratic Party they would “face the fires of hell.” What da…. Who goes to Hell is up to them and they only get there by repeatedly and deliberately turning their backs on my loving invitation and grace. And the guy with the pointy hat in Texas claiming that aborted babies will be “standing at the gates of Heaven barring your Democrat entrance.” Wow! Wait just a second there, tiger. I run Heaven and I can assure you ain’t nobody barring anybody’s entrance. 

Just then the waitress put down calamari and crab cakes and God decided to order a fried grouper sandwich: “If I weren’t God, it would go to my love handles but I’m God… No love handles and don’t have to worry about my cholesterol. Pretty good deal.” 

God: So, here’s the deal, guys. But, the calamari are great and nobody makes crab cakes like they do here….

For his part, God looked as if he couldn’t decide which he preferred, so he switched between the two, with an occasional draw on His bottle of Jai Alai.

God: I always try the local beers. This is really good; just the right touch of citrus…. 

God: I don’t get into politics. Believe me, if I did, more often than not, history would be really different. Sure, I’d have gone for Lincoln and Washington and Adams. Jefferson and Lech Walesa would have been givens. But Andrew Jackson, after what he did to the Native Americans and the Trail of Tears, no way!  Or that (garbled because God had just taken a bite of his grouper sandwich) Pinochet in Chile. Does anyone seriously think I got involved in those elections?

God: Pardon my French, but hell no.

God: Guys! Guys! By the way, after all these years I figure we’ve known each other long enough for me to call you ‘Guys.’  Think of what it would mean if I actually get involved in elections. If I put my thumb on the scale for the guy who just left the White House, it means that I favored someone who I knew would lie over and over again, who would repeatedly attempt to deprive the poor of health care and in the last weeks of his presidency became the most prolific executioner in more than a century. He approved of the federal executions of thirteen people. And he calls himself “pro-life” – my horse’s petuti! That’s like saying I take sides in wars. 

AH: Can you pass the hot sauce?

God: Before I forget, who’s this “pillow guy” and what’s he doing speaking for me?  Yeah, I know I’m God and all-knowing but this guy is a puzzle, even to me. What’s he doing telling people “I see the greatest president in history. Of course he is. He was chosen by God… God answered our prayers…, our millions of prayers, and gave us grace… We were given a second chance and time granted to get our country back… and getting people saved in Jesus’s name.” Damn! [Yes, God said “damn” and a couple of other things that we won’t quote.] Damn! I’ve checked with Jesus and neither of us voted. And we wouldn’t have voted for the loser.

God: Sorry about that. I just had to ask.  As I said, I checked with Jesus and neither of us voted or even bothered with the election. I hate it when people say that We did. Now, back to my question. Y’all remember Albino Luciani?

AH: Blank stares!

God: Oh how time flies. He was Pope John Paul I – only in office thirty-three days. “The smiling pope.” He was a letter writer… to all sorts of folks – real and imaginary, living and dead: Pinocchio, Charles Dickens, G.K. Chesterton, Goethe, Sir Walter Scott, Jesus, Mr. Pickwick.  But I really like that he wrote to your American – Mark Twain. 

AH: Stared at each other and wondered where God was going with this.

God: Twain understood. Didya [sometimes God slid into slang.] ever read The War Prayer. 

God: The War Prayer gives you a pretty good idea of what people are saying when they pray for victories – in politics and in wars - and claim that We – it really is a Trinity-thing ya’know – are on their side

God: Now give me a minute or two here. Twain was writing about a church service in the late 1800s or early 1900s when America was fighting two wars and people were praying for glorious victories for their young men marching off to war. The minister gave a great, chest-thumping prayer for the victory of the young soldiers. I remember exactly what Twain wrote. Hey! I’m God. Remembering this is easy for me. Then, in Twain’s tale, an old man – We dispatched him – walked in and cautioned:  

“Ponder this—keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon your neighbor at the same time. 

“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned by God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts—fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard the words ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory — must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

“’Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe.,, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it—

“’For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!

“’We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.’”

God: There’s no more of a chance that I would take sides in an American political campaign than I would in any war. Do me a favor. Tell people that.

God: Oh, and one last thing. No two. First, anyone want that last crab cake? ‘Cause if you don’t, I do. And would you please tell folks that Confederate flag is for losers. They lost. What the hell are folks doing bragging about being losers?