Stop Trying Hit Me..And Hit ME
I heard God say the other day, “Stop trying to hit me, and hit me!”
Ever heard that before?
It started when he did all these things that felt like betrayal. As much as it hurts, I can handle betrayal from you or me – we’re human and I expect it. But not from him.
Yet, somehow he pulled it off. I was so stunned that after I caught my breath I had just enough in me to say, “I’m done.”
And this was his response, “Stop trying to hit me….”
So, I said, “F*** off! I don’t want to even consider the possibility that you are here, so don’t even try.”
It’s one thing to be mad at your lover but still acknowledge that not only are they still in the room, but that you still want them; you just don’t want them to say another-word-kind of mad.
This was different. I wanted him gone, and I didn’t want him around. And it’s his responsibility to leave since he is God, omnipresent and all that; and supposedly I can’t run away far or fast enough from him. So…he is the one who must leave.
Talking about it with a friend later I recalled the quote from a lady saint of the medieval days, “Jesus, if this is how you treat your friends, it is no wonder you have so few.” As far as I was concerned I wanted off. I didn’t want to be part of Jesus’ MySpace friends count. Delete me please.
Then, it was a Monday morning when I woke up not just threatening to be done with him, but I was done with him. And I was authentically ok with that. It was clear the relationship wasn’t working out. We had a go at it, a good 20 years or more, but finally the steam was gone. It seemed to be mutual, the way it was with your Sig-Ot when you no longer chose to be Significant to the Other. It was the calm after the storm, only there wasn’t anything left to call home. And we packed up and walked off going our separate ways.
I mean there is this scene in “Changing Lanes, “ where the character Gavan is talking to a priest in a confessional, by accident. They get into a conversation about the character of God. The Priest says, “You must be angry about something.”
Gavan responds with the gamut of pat answers that the priest might give, “you’ll ask me if I prayed…you’ll say ‘the prayer that God hears is the one you can’t find the words for,’ and then you’ll tell me ‘only the broken heart is whole,’ and then you’ll tell me ‘only the meek will inherit the earth.’ I get it.….I came here for some meaning, I want you to give the world meaning to me|!”
“Why does the world need meaning?,” says the priest.
Gavan responds, “Because the world is a sewer, the world is a shit-hole, a garbage dump…”
“You came here because you want God to be a part of this.. so let God innnn. God is watching us,” says the priest.
“God is watching us? Sometimes God likes to watch a football game…sometimes God likes to watch a war. Sometimes God likes to put two guys in a paper bag and let them rip.”
The priest says, “God loooves you.”
And the coup de grace response, “God is a joke. God is a pathetic joke for losers and you know it.”
That is what I call a hit. This scene has always intrigued me because it is a visual of someone who is willing to call bluff, to see how far the boundary lines go. Honesty at its rawest.
I have been angry with God before, but it was the kind of anger that didn’t get too out of hand because I was afraid I might lose him. This was different. I didn’t care if I lost him.
Stop trying to hit me and hit me.
I think I made a hit…but I think I could do better.
I think he knows I could do better, too.
That is why he still seems to be here. Apparently he thinks he did better when he made me and wants me to find out for myself just what it is that I am made of...
It's like there is no such thing as "out of bounds" when it comes to God. He knows this more than we do and seems to be waiting for anybody with enough cajones to see how far we can go. It's not so much testing as it is discovering. And along the way, I find that the very one I am willing to lose, somehow has beceome the very One I value most.