Conversations with God about his Decalogue

The Eighth Commandment

Having moved back to the USA and having had more than a month pass by without so much as an email, I had decided that God wasn’t interested in this conversation any longer. I didn’t think I had offended him; I sure hoped not. I was sitting in my kitchen contemplating the heat, 92 degree Fahrenheit at 10 am, and trying to get up the energy to do something constructive with the rest of the day. I have a small bird feeder outside my window and all morning a couple of chickadees had been coming and going. Imagine my surprise when a large Blue Jay lit on the sill and chirped “howdy!”
ME: Hi.
GOD: (Fluffing his feathers) Feeling a bit better?
ME: God?
GOD: You were expecting George Burns maybe?
ME: It’s been a while.
GOD: Has it?
ME: Yes.
GOD: I guess some time has passed for you?
ME: Over a month.
GOD: You missed me. How sweet.
ME: I guess I did.
GOD: Break any commandments while I was away?
ME: You don’t know?
GOD: Oh. A bit testy, huh?
ME: Sorry. I don’t think so.
GOD: Good lad. What have you considered about number eight?
ME: Well, this is one that has always seemed to me to make simple common sense. I do believe that it is wrong to take something that belongs to someone else just because you want it. I sure don’t like it when people steal from me. Until I start thinking about the terrible inequities of wealth in this world. Why should a person starve to death while someone else in the same city is eating fois gras and Kobe beef.
GOD: Why indeed.
ME: It is the one of the first conundrums I faced as a young man - reading Charles Dickens and asking myself how stealing a loaf of bread to feed your starving child could be a sin. It wasn’t long after that that I began to realize that my world was as bad or worse. And I can remember how embarrassed I was at 6 years old when I had to go to the local store to “buy” bread and milk on credit. It was during WWII and my father was overseas in the navy. We had moved to the navy housing in Key West, Florida from New London, Connecticut; the navy pay department had lost track of us somehow and my mother hadn’t gotten a check in three months. She had been charging food at this local store for two months and was ashamed to ask for more credit. So she sent me. I guess she thought I wouldn’t understand that we were asking for handouts of a sort. But I did. I could feel the shopkeeper’s pity and I was ashamed too. I don’t exactly know why but it felt like stealing, even though my mother did intend to pay for it eventually. It gave me a sense of what it must be like to not have any resources and be so hungry all the time. If I had had a chance to steal some money to pay for those groceries, I think I might have done it. In fact, if I needed to steal today to keep myself or some other person alive, I probably would. So, I guess, as with all these commandments, there are some relative considerations. Particularly when they conflict with one another. If I have more than enough and someone else I could give to is dying from too little, aren’t I committing murder, if only indirectly?
GOD: I’d say so.
ME: Then, you are a socialist or a communist.
GOD: (Laughing and strutting back and forth on the window sill) What about the eighth commandment?
ME: Right. The heart of capitalism, I suppose. So, property and ownership and wealth are all in line with your plan?
GOD: Plan?
ME: I assumed that God has a plan for everything. Right?
GOD: All is known.
ME: Oh boy. Here it comes. The BIG QUESTION. If you know everything that will happen, then it is all preordained and I have no free will. So, why even have commandments?
GOD: (Lifting off for a moment and then settling back down and giving me the bird’s eye) You have had some very wise people instruct you in this. What have you learned from them and your own experience?
ME: I have come to the conclusion that I feel as if the decisions I make sometimes determine the outcomes in my life. But, as Hamlet says, “There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we may.” In other words, I assume I have the power to decide in the moment how to behave, what to do, but I cannot really control what will happen to or around me.
GOD: Well put. See, you always seem to find an answer if you try. Why is that?
ME: I’m not sure. I guess I was made in your image.
GOD: (giving a loud, blue jay "Caw") So, how do you resolve the eighth commandment, personally?
ME: Well, I never steal because I seem to have all I need most of the time; not all I would like to have, but all I need. On the other hand, I occasionally refuse to pay for or provide what others demand if I feel they are not entitled to it. Even if the law seems to be on their side. For instance, I recently had to go to the hospital emergency room for an allergic reaction. I spent about 30 minutes there, saw a young intern who prescribed some medicine and sent me home. Two weeks later, I got a bill for $1100.00! I was stunned. It felt like theft to me. I am on a fixed income and that would be almost my entire month’s budget! So, I refused. I sent a payment that I felt the service I had gotten was worth, an amount that wouldn’t require me to go without. Of course, the hospital turned the account over to a collection agency and they are calling me, trying to get more and to make me feel like a thief. But I don’t. In fact, it seems to me I would be contributing to theft if I paid them the full amount. You know, I also try to give to others, even though it means going without sometimes. If I have a little extra, I help someone else. I feel in balance most of the time this way. Hmmm... I guess I am a socialist. Good grief! But I also expect to be paid when I do work and spend some of the money I make on myself and try to save enough to have an occasional dinner out or take a trip. I don’t feel bad that I have a car and computer and a decent place to live and food everyday. I feel bad that others do not have medical help when they need it or food or a place to live. So, I am a part time socialist. But not as a political affiliation, rather as a matter of conscience. Your son was too, wasn’t he?
GOD: Well, not by affiliation but when you put it that way, I suppose he was. I will ask you to remember this - to take more than you deserve is to create a world where stealing is endemic. To keep from any person what I have given to all people is theft.
ME: So, if I take the corn a farmer grows in Iowa and transport it to NYC to sell at a profit, I am stealing? That doesn’t seem right. If I didn’t transport the corn, someone might not have enough food to eat in NYC. And the profit is what benefits me personally for my labor.
GOD: True.
ME: The problem is with the amount of profit, isn’t it? If I take too much, the corn becomes expensive and some people will starve because they can’t afford it. In that sense, greed and the accumulation of excessive wealth are the roots of the worst kind of theft. I don’t need socialism or any other kind of economic/political theory, simply a sense of proportion and a willingness to limit my desire for greater and greater wealth. I fear this commandment will prove impossible for mankind to ever follow. And the Corporate owners will absolutely hate it.
GOD: Do you follow it?
ME: Yes. Yes, I guess I do. And so do some others I know. But not most. Most, even the poor seem to want to accumulate beyond what is needed to live in decency. I think this may be a great commandment but doomed more than any other to be ignored.
GOD: Time, as you know it, will reveal all.
ME: Will it be another month before I hear from you again.
GOD: Time, as you know it, will reveal that as well. (And so, he flew off)

While waiting for God to decide to continue, I decided to stock up on some cooking essentials.

Conversations with God about his Decalogue

An Intermission (I hope)

I think God is ignoring me at the moment; no word for days. I suppose this worry comes from my poor, limited mortal's view of time. Hope He gets in touch soon.