Ring….Ring…

She looks over at the phone. If you could see it, little daggers, a whole lot of them, are flying toward the phone.

Ring…Ring…

Jesus. “Hello?”

“Hello.”

“Can I help you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve got about ten seconds to say something useful; otherwise, I’m hanging up.”

“Oh, okay. This is God.”

“For pity’s sake. I’m hanging up, and I’m hanging up right now. Don’t call back.”

Seething, she tried to pull the strands of the article she was writing back to the paper, back to the awareness that is how she writes.

Ring…Ring…

This is not working… “Hello?”

“Yes, is this Pauline?”

“Yes. Who are you?”

“God. Like I said before.”

“Ok, God, what can I do for you?”

“Oh, now, it’s not what you can do for me; it’s more like what can I do for you.”

“Okay.” Eyebrows beetled over her face. “You’ve got two minutes.”

“I have to say that’s more than you gave me before.”

“Tick-tock.”

“As I was saying. I have an opportunity for you.”

“I’m listening.”

“Actually, you are not.”

“What? Have you got X-ray eyes?”

“Yes.”

She sighed, “Okay, you’ve got my attention.”

“In the interest of being brief, I’d like to say that this attitude you have of being hyper-focused on your writing is damaging your essence.”

“Okay.”

“I can see you are frowning.”

“Yes.”

“You’re getting what your father used to say was a case of the ass.”

“Well, you are God. You should know.”

“Just listen. And breathe.”

“This hurts.”

“Yes, just like putting on a new pair of shoes hurts.”

“Yes. How is it you are pushing my buttons here? I was writing. I was fine. And then you had to call.”

“You were in need. You sent up a prayer of sorts. I heard it and decided to answer in a way that you would listen.”

“I did that?”

“Yes, you did. Actually, your co-workers were sending out similar prayers.”

She frowned. “Really?”

“Yes. They don’t know what’s wrong; it’s just that they care for you and hope that whatever is bothering you gets fixed.”

“If it were only that easy.”

“Actually, it is.”

“How so?”

“You’re thinking my two minutes are up, but just listen for a little longer and I think you will be pleased. Healing from a cold or a mishap like a twisted ankle takes time. There is the getting ill, which sometimes takes a few days. You don’t actually know what’s going on in the beginning until finally, the scratchy throat arrives; you put two and two together and now realize that you are sick. Then, being sick might last a few days or sometimes longer. This is when all regularly scheduled activity stops. You miss a few days of work. Or you drag your feet through them. And then there is the getting better, once you’ve turned the tide. You might start your day off fine, but come mid-morning, you realize all is not completely well. Yes, you are disappointed, but hey, that’s how getting better is. It’s done in bits and pieces.

Your life is like that too. The life lessons that everybody learns aren’t only at the beginning or the middle of your life. They happen all along.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“So, if you knew that it is perfectly normal for recovery from an illness to happen in fits and starts, so too are your life lessons learned. This is when you realize that the person who drives you nuts, who has been aggravating you for the last ten years at work, isn’t going to retire or change how he acts, and it is up to you to do something about it. Since you’re neither a murderous person now nor likely to become one, you’re left with only one option: change yourself.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No.”

God pauses and allows the very perplexed woman on the other end of the phone to process their conversation.

“God?”

“Yes?”

“So, I need to look for patience?”

“Thinking more along the lines of acceptance.”

“I need a drink.”

“That’s okay. I understand.”

“You mean, the idiot can still be an idiot but now I am happy?”

“Yes. Only you can make yourself happy. It isn’t anybody else’s responsibility to make you happy. On the same token, only you can make yourself unhappy.”

“This is horrible.”

“Well, when you first run into them, life lessons do seem a little harsh at times. It has to do with moving you from the spot you are in, a spot you are accustomed to, to a brand new spot in the garden, over by the daisies. It’s different. You don’t like how the sun takes a little longer to get over to your spot, but the trade-off is that you get the sun for a little longer each day and the daisies are certainly less temperamental than the roses. There are both good points and bad points to any sort of movement. The trick is to expect the breakthroughs. Expect good news. Expect to be happy. And all will be well.”

“Thanks.”

“I thought you might be pleased.”

“Tell me. Do you talk to other people like this?”

“Sometimes. It helps if they don’t think they’ve got a screw loose. You, being a writer, are accustomed to all sorts of characters, so this isn’t that far away from what you have already experienced as a writer.”

Hi everybody. I hope you enjoyed that conversation I had with God. I believe there are a few lessons I can take away from it myself; this being the third day after I got both a flu and a Covid shot, and I was laid up for a few days. This morning I’m feeling much better. The funny thing is that every lesson in that conversation was something I already knew. Sometimes wisdom isn’t about learning something new. Sometimes it’s about being reminded.

This piece started with me sitting in front of a blank page. No ideas. Nothing, and then the phone rang.

Pauline Evanosky
Where I Am