Under a first rate inquisition
I mussed a test
I don’t know
If God
Can make
A bean burrito so big
That God can’t
Eat it
Such a peerless quest in
May be
Scorn points with sum
To be little God
Though conceivably
A cause
Fore the big bang!
This poem and joke is a mocking attempt to deal with mocking. Questioning is great, as close kin to curiosity. In any case though, the answers we come to are led by the questions we ask. Sometimes our questions just don’t rise to the occasion. This elementary school question about God’s omnipotence is such a question. To make my point, I would proffer that this poem is a complement to the question: Can people ask a question so stupid that even God would be forced to publish a comeback? Framing omnipotence as brute force, God’s purpose as some carnival showiness, and/or insisting the God be able to be digested whole by human brains, leaves us with a limited universe of pre-ordained “acceptable” answers that are unsatisfying. Perhaps God has published God’s resume in a glorious splendor transcending what can be captured in the human mind and reduced to a scale or scoring system that would allow the employment of God. Perhaps God doesn’t even want to be “employed.” Perhaps God doesn’t demand authorship rights, but seeks only presence. “Seek and you shall find” has an unspoken sister phrase, “Don’t seek and you won’t find.” Many skeptics of religion and spirituality are rightfully wary of claims of authority, and how acceptance of certain authority squelches curiosity. Nonetheless, what if God’s presence in the universe is supposed to be an ever-unfolding mystery with intriguing clues and an irreducible amount of doubt to assure that the game is perpetually beguiling? Endless discovery of God’s fathomless presence. Sounds to me like curiosity may very well be a fundamental facet of true religion. Jewish tradition holds that the face of God cannot be seen by human eyes and live. Perhaps we would be torn from our human existence with such revelation, either dying as a human and/or transmuting into a form of being which can adequately hold such knowledge and experience. There is an image in the Old Testament (Exodus 33:23), “Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen,” where it is held (beheld?) that Moses sees God’s butt (backside) as he departs the encounter, but Moses will not be allowed to see God’s face. In an endless game of curiosity and intrigue, this may just be one aspect of that relationship. Pessimists may just consider this God mooning us. Yet, since God’s son was a carpenter, should it really come as a shock that the Father is a plumber? Or, perhaps, God is otherwise occupied, maybe in a Big Bang Burrito® eating contest.
