Conversations with God about his Decalogue

The Tenth Commandment

“God! God! God Bless it!” It just slipped out while I was watching the news about the financial meltdown and all of the people who had lost or were likely to lose their homes, jobs – everything. I sure didn’t expect to be answered.
God: You called? What do you want me to bless?
ME: Holy Shit! Ah, oops. I mean, you scared the living Je… I mean, I didn’t expect you to answer.
GOD: Why not.
ME: Well, I haven’t heard you from you for almost two months. I’d almost forgotten you were there.
GOD: Time is such a problem for you humans.
ME: Ah, yes, it is.
GOD: Well?
ME: Oh, I was just reacting to this latest news.
GOD: What news is that?
ME: You haven’t heard? America’s financial institutions are failing left and right. And our government (left and right) is a panic to save them.
GOD: Why is this news?
ME: I see your point. It does get me thinking about your final commandment. Why do people covet?
GOD: You are a person. Why do you covet?
ME: Hmmm. I don’t think I do anymore. At least not very much. Most of the time, I am astounded at how much I have. I guess the last coveting I recall was a few years ago. I wanted a better computer and my neighbor’s wife.
GOD: Why?
ME: Well, the computer seemed so sophisticated and full of games and other diversions. It downloaded stuff and handled heavy programs like Photoshop so quickly. And my neighbor’s wife was so pretty and charming and compassionate. Very sexy also.
GOD: What happened?
ME: I eventually bought the computer and had a long talk with myself about letting go of this silly attachment to owning women.
GOD: So, you have answered the question, then?
ME: Yep, I guess I have. At least as far as these desires are concerned. But I have never wanted to own and control billions of dollars.
GOD: What’s the difference?
ME: You know, you are a strange God. Sometimes I think you visit me just to make me reflect and feel. Anyway. The difference is that while some people hold billions of dollars in their greedy little fists, there are children starving, people without a place to live or hope for tomorrow. I know the arguments. That someone has to use all that money to keep things running. That they use their wealth to improve lives in general and keep goods flowing. That without them, the world would be much worse. I just don’t believe that excuse. Sure many of them spend some portion on others – perhaps even as much as a billion or two on “charity.” It still doesn’t feel right. A billion for others, which is a drop in the bucket for the vast numbers of the poor, and a 100 billion for myself. A loaf of bread, a pencil or some medicine for them and a pacific island and a jet liner for myself. And, least I forget, a million or two I PAC money for the congressman I wish to own.
GOD: Are you sure you don’t covet this wealth?
ME: I have wealth of the only kind that means anything to me. Believe me, if I had that kind of money I would get rid of most of it.
GOD: You sound like a communist.
ME: Name-calling? From you? Call me what you like, I know that money is the biggest illusion of all. Greed is the belief that this illusion we call wealth somehow protects one from the pain of living. I can sit on my island, drinking martinis and never see the fellow in town who goes to the trash dumpster and eats what I left from last’s night dinner. And I surely can’t sit and enjoy communing with him. I am sick from the corruption of my government and the greed of these multinational finance, oil and arms merchants. I want you to damn them.
GOD: OK
ME: What?
GOD: I said, OK. Do you think I made these commandments as entertainment?
ME: I don’t see it happening.
GOD: What?
ME: Retribution. Oh, sure, some few will lose control of a company here and there. May find themselves losing power and position. But most of those will walk away with huge sums of personal wealth and will no longer even have to pretend to be doing something worthwhile.
GOD: So, you think that the only retribution possible is to lose money?
ME: It would feel like some balance to me.
GOD: What if it meant that everyone would lose so much that all would starve?
ME: I don’t want that to happen. But so many are starving now that it might just mean that we shared the pain more equitably.
GOD: Do you believe that?
ME: I am not certain. I surely do not wish life to become more difficult for those who are on the edge now. I guess my view is warped a bit by the extraordinary standard of living here in the developed countries. I have been to Calcutta and Jakarta and seen the alternative – real, widespread, wrenching poverty. I wouldn’t wish to add to that. It is difficult though. I need help here, God. How does your retribution work? Do you really punish people with hell after death? Are they reborn as worms? I have always longed for and believed that we create our own hell in this life.
GOD: Can you verify that?
ME: I know that when I have been so unbalanced as to live far from the commandments, I have suffered in my heart and sometimes in my body. When I lay awake nights wanting my neighbor’s wife and imagining having a new computer or worrying that I might lose the little money I had saved for tomorrow, I was in a kind of hell right here. I felt sick, lost and without joy. I’d like to think that these financial moguls feel such suffering equal to the vast amount of wealth they hoard. But it doesn’t make sense. Why would they covet anything when they can have whatever they want? They can even relieve themselves of the awareness of the terrible poverty around them by giving a million here or there.
GOD: So, you want to know if hell exists on earth or later?
ME: No. If you have a hell waiting for anyone, I really don’t want to know it.
GOD: Why not?
ME: It would make you like them.
GOD: How?
ME: It would make you worse than them. You created all of this, including their greedy natures. For you to create this, even as a potential, even as a test or gift of free will, then torture those who were not strong or wise enough to resist the temptation would be the act of a sadistic tyrant.
GOD: Another Job. Can you make the great whale?
ME: No. I can love it, however.
GOD: Can you love the arms merchant?
ME: (long pause) Yes. But I can also wish him to become compassionate. To follow these all of these commandment as closely as humanly possible.
GOD: If you can be thus, can I be less?
ME: I guess this is what is meant by faith, right?
GOD: Amen.