I was thinking during the last few days about the time that I met God . I won’t describe Him because He can change shape , of course , and I’m sure He does all the time . Maybe becomes a Her . Or a They/Them .
I don’t want to get philosophical ( couldn’t even if I wanted too ). I know the nuns said God is everywhere ; is in everything . But , this was a guy , a little dude , a non-descript sort of a guy , wearing a beret . God wasn’t in him ; he was God . He said so .
He walked into the counseling center where I worked ( I use the term ‘worked’ lightly ; figuratively , catachrestically ) as a so-called security guard . No uniform . I just hung around there as the counselors did their things in their little cubical therapy rooms . Talked to the young secretary and chatted sometimes with the building director . Raymond Chandler might have called me out as a dumb crumb , the fall guy . If anything went wrong then I would be the one on the hook . Should’a been obvious . Philip Marlowe could’a clued me in to that. Told me to lam.
But God came in just at closing time one evening . The counselors were emerging from their cubicles ready to go home . God kind of messed that up because we couldn’t leave a guy at the front desk and all go home .
The young secretary was good ; quick on her feet , so to speak . She thrust a bunch of intake forms at the guy in the beret . ” Fill these out ,” she said . It bought some time as the handful of highly educated counselors pondered what to do . Couldn’t just throw the guy out even though it was closing time . Wouldn’t be right .
There had been a city agency that would have sent out what they called a Pep Team to handle surprises like this , and take care of people , but their funding had been cut and the Pep Teams had vanished a month or so before that night .
As God filled out the forms , because He had been told to do by the young secretary, he greeting each counselor. To the latina he spoke in fluent Spanish . To the man who happened to be recently from France , He spoke in fluent French . The secretary asked Him how he’d happened to get to our agency .
” I flew ,” he said . He said he flew from San Rafael , California . (I think he meant California .) She asked him what airline he had taken . ” No , I flew ,” he said as he flapped him arms up and down . He flew .
I watched him fill out the forms . WHO RECOMMENDED YOU ? He wrote ‘Lenny Bruce’. EDUCATION . He wrote ‘ Cosmic Universe ‘. NAME He wrote ‘ GOD ‘.
The gaggle of confounded counselors, standing a few feet away and discussing their options to do the right thing with this guy , didn’t have any wonderful ideas . The best that they came up with in desperation was to call a taxi for the guy . It seemed like a bad idea to me , sloppy thinking . Where would the taxi take him ? God only knew !
But a taxi quietly pulled up . We could all see it out the window behind the man wearing the beret . He was facing away from the window . He couldn’t have seen or heard the taxi as it arrived .
” Well , my ride is here ! “,he suddenly said , nevertheless , and he turned and walked out . He had handed the intake forms , all filled out , back to the young secretary . I asked for them and she surrendered them . I have the word of God somewhere in my garage !
My former tenant and friend , Michael G. , might have asked ,” Did you touch him ? It would’ve been better luck if you’d touched him “. ( I assume the superstitions about a humming bird once temporarily trapped inside of my house would apply to God too . Why not ? When I told Michael G. about the humming bird , he asked if I had touched it . ).
My mother , on the other hand , when I told her my hummingbird story , said to me ,” That’s bad luck . A bird in the house is bad luck ! “
I don’t know about God , good luck or bad luck . Maybe , by this time , I’ve become a pagan . Anyway , I didn’t touch the guy . I told those highly educated counselors that night , when the man with the beret had walked out and stepped into the taxi : “I think it was God .”
God works in mysterious ways . I think the nuns said that .
itkindofgotawayfromyou 