Mary on Top of the Mountain

An earnest young woman named Mary climbed to the top of the highest mountain and called out to God. She received no answer. She raised her hands into the sky as high as she could and shouted in her loudest voice, "GOD! ARE YOU THERE?" At length came the reply:

"Oh, hey there, Mary. What can I do for you?"

Mary gasped and her hands covered her mouth. "Oh, God, is that you? I didn't think you would answer me."

"Sorry about that," God said. "I'm kinda busy up here. Lotta irons in the fire, ya know."

"Oh, of course," Mary said, "you must have billions of people talking to you every day."

"Please," God snorted, "try a couple quintillion. Once I got started, I just couldn't help myself. Now I've got more people in more places than I know what to do with."

"Then there are intelligent life forms on other planets?"

"Uhhh, yeah . . . You didn't think I created the entire universe just to give you guys down there on Earth something to contemplate, did you?"

"Actually, we've never been sure why . . ."

God sighed impatiently. "I'm sorry, Mary, but can I help you with anything specific? Like I said, I'm real busy here."

"Oh," Mary said, "of course. I'm sorry for wasting your time."

"Quite all right," God told her, rolling his hand in a get-to-the-point sort of way.

"Okay. Well. I was wondering if you could tell me why you allow people like George W. Bush to use you as a justification for doing evil things, like waging arbitrary wars or misleading the people."

God wrinkled his nose. "Who's George W. Bush?"

Mary was dumbfounded. "He's the President of the United States."

God gave no sign of recognition.

"Which is my country."

God shook his head. "Sorry, doesn't ring a bell. I haven't really been paying attention lately." God looked past Mary down at the Earth. "Hey, what happened to that big library you all used to have in Alexandria?"

"That library was burned down centuries ago. Almost nothing survived."

"No shit? Damn, what is wrong with you people?"

"You really haven't been paying attention to Earth for that long?" Mary asked, incredulous.

"I'm doing the best I can, you know. I only turned away for a few minutes."