What's Under the Curtain?

By DOLPH HONICKER

God is always depicted as an Ancient Mariner sort of figure with a long flowing white robe, sitting on a throne. No wings. He doesn’t need them. He’s going nowhere. He’s already there.

Preachers, priests, rabbis and shamans say God simultaneously monitors the thoughts of the earth’s billions each nanosecond - from Osama bin Laden to George W. Bush to that cute jogger in an Auburn sweatshirt and tights who waved and smiled at Mr. Dickens, our adopted golden retriever, as she jogged past the other day.

Did God actually take time from the furies of the day to read those fleeting thoughts of mine as I swiveled to admire the retreating picture of bouncing long-legged health? Will God reveal those thoughts to my beloved wife Jeannine of these many decades, and will I go straight to hell without passing Go even though I did not turn into a pillar of salt as I thought those thoughts?

At least I beheld real flesh. What loathsome thoughts must have crossed the twisted mind of former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft as he beheld the 60-plus-year-old bare aluminum bosom of the Spirit of Justice and a male figure symbolizing the Majesty of Justice?

Did God command Ashcroft to order $8,000 worth of blue drapes in lieu of a mammoth bra as cover to prevent him from becoming embarrassingly aroused at a press conference especially if Jeff Gannon of the gay web site was present?

Wouldn’t it have been more cost effective to have imported blue burqas shed by freed Afghan women?

I digress.

You’d think that even a divine hard drive would burn up keeping track of quadzillions of thoughts zinging through cyberspace monitoring the thoughts of billions every second, some good, some bad, some mean and downright nasty.

Why such divine curiosity?

Doesn’t God have enough to do picking the winners of high school football games, guiding tornadoes into trailer parks, unleashing 9.0

earthquakes followed by 12-nation tsunamis and other unholy practical jokes to be concerned with my occasional dirty thoughts?

I’m a man, too. I simply couldn’t hack it. What’s the point? My brain would implode. There’s other fish to fry: unread books to read plus twice-read classics that call for rereading, stories to write, inside straights to draw to, another royal flush to shoot for -- I’ve hit a couple. So you see, keeping up with 52 cards is the limit of my mathematical skills and curiosity.

But Eve? Women? Their minds are like sponges. Their curiosities know no bounds. They want to know it all. These dear, cat-like creatures are born curious.

When the Wizard of Oz thundered, the Tin Man rattled, the Scarecrow shook and the Lion cowed; it was little Dorothy who lifted the curtain and exposed the Wizard as a fraud. Women are like that.

And once they found their tongues, women loved to spread the Word - whether it was true or false. Men erroneously dismiss this as “gossip.”

We forget that before computers, the fastest form of communication was tellawomanasecret.

It goes without saying that women are more organized. We men can’t pick up our socks on a bet or ever find two that match.

Logic should convince us that the five major religions - Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism -- err grossly in the fallacy of male gods. Yes, there’s a man on the moon. Men have even left their footprints on its surface. But the moon is barren, as is Mars, named for the Roman god of war.

Think. Who nurtures us? Mother Nature.

Whose bosom gives us her final warm embrace? Mother Earth.

Porgy and Bess sums it up: “Th’ things you’re liable to read in th’ Bible, they ain’t necessarily so.”

Don’t look up. Look down. God is a woman.

Copyright 2007, Dolph Honicker