God Must Laugh

I have a new favorite comic.  Not the whole series, a specific strip.

This one

Why do I like this particular comic so much?   The kid, Slick, starts out sad because the world sucks so much.  He gets ticked and starts screaming at God, and God throws up a hand puppet and mocks him.  Isn’t that horrible?  Some of my conservative friends are offended that I used the word suck, and they’re more offended that this kid is yelling at God.  Some of my liberal friends are offended because God is pictured as a sarcastic jerk who mocks our pain.

Me?  I love it.  Look at that last frame, where God pulls out the sarcasm.  Look at Slick’s face.  He’s smiling!  That’s me.  Totally.

The world sucks.  If you’re not seeing that, then you’re either amazingly sheltered or willfully blind.  Lots of good stuff too, for sure, but nothing to counterbalance hatred, disease, poverty, and death.  It’s not even close. Yet here I am, raised to believe that a loving God is ultimately in charge. So I say to God, basically, “Life is SUCKING!!”  Except I say it nicer than that because, you know, he’s God.  God knows what I was going to say, but I think he appreciates the effort.  (And yes I know God isn’t male, stop being pedantic or go away.)

And you know what God says back?  Well, nothing really.  Nothing I could point to and say “Thus sayeth the Lord.”  (Part of me would love to be that kind of prophet, and part of me is still too scared to ask.  Read the book. It sucks to be a prophet.) It’s just feelings, intuitions, coincidences, thoughts, scriptures, insights, even the odd dream and it all adds up to something very like that comic.

God is funny.

And sarcastic.

And some days, exactly what I need to get myself off my whiney butt and back in the fight is for God to go, “Boo hoo hoo.  Life is soooo hard for you.  Booo hoo hooo!”  Maybe I’m weird.  Ok, I know I’m weird.  But that’s the God I know.