Who’s God?

Hello, Substack subscribers!

Once again, I'm terribly inconsistent about posting here. I have been writing, albeit mostly short fiction, which I haven't published. The following is an essay I wrote a few months ago. Initially, I considered trying to publish it somewhere, but I thought it would just be better to post here. Warning: there are some potentially offensive jokes ahead. If you can't tell from the tone and style, I was reading and rereading a lot of David Sedaris when I came up with the idea for this essay.

My first grandparent to die didn’t pass until August of this year, when I was almost 32 years old. Grandaddy lived to the age of 84, and he spent the last five months of his life receiving home hospice care due to a culmination of heart issues and declining cognitive abilities. Since I was well into adulthood at this point, I was not only familiar with death, but I practically considered it a regular component of my existence. I primarily knew SMA and other Disabled friends who had died, but I also knew church members, extended family members, former teachers, former classmates, coworkers, and people I used to hang out with at comic conventions.

After having lost multiple friends at young ages, I found Grandaddy’s death more of a celebratory occasion. He lived a full, exuberant life, and one that included not just grandkids, but great grandkids. I knew I would miss him, but his passing wasn’t tragic or unexpected. Still, attendants at his funeral service felt compelled to bear solemn expressions on their faces and greet me as if I were supposed to be in a deep state of mourning.

“I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“I’m thinking of you during this difficult time.”

“Take care of yourself.”

Then there were my grandparents’ old friends and acquaintances who interrogated me during the visitation hour.

“Do you know my name? I visited you in the hospital when you were little.”

That narrows it down. I had dozens of relatives and family friends visit me during my myriad childhood hospitalizations. And no offense to these people, but a lot of the elderly folks at the service looked alike. A large portion of congregants were elderly white couples who had spent most of their lives in North Carolina, many with walkers, hearing aids, and wire-rimmed glasses. Some I knew, and others I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to recognize or not.

When these individuals asked me point-blank if I knew their names after having had minimal interactions with them in the early 2000s, part of me wanted to say: You’re asking me this question. Don’t a good number of people in your age group have dementia?

I obviously didn’t say this, but Grandaddy would have laughed if I did. His unfiltered sense of humor inspired my own. People say unusual things at funerals, mostly because death is often considered a taboo topic. While adults are usually the ones who utter the most awkward and uncomfortable questions and phrases in these environments, children say the most memorable, even provocative, quotes.

The night before Grandaddy passed, my sister Erin explained to my niece Lily that he didn’t have much time left. Upset and wailing in tears, Lily then said something that only an eight-year-old could fathom and then utter. With the utmost seriousness, she said to Erin, “I just don’t want Gammy to get remarried!” In the following weeks, I used this moment as a running joke with my grandmother to ask her how her dating life was going at the age of 84.

Like Lily, her younger brother Lucas has an equally fascinating imagination and an inclination to ask unfiltered questions no matter the time or place. As a five-year-old sitting with us in the front pew during Grandaddy’s funeral service, I can imagine numerous thoughts and questions entered his mind. Yet, the one he chose to voice certainly captured the attention of at least some of the 160 congregants in the sanctuary of the small Baptist church where we gathered. As the minister led us in an opening prayer, Lucas uttered two words that those of us up front heard loud and clear.

“Who’s God?”

Instantly, my sister’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment, while internally, my brother and I were laughing our asses off. I was also speaking at the service moments later, and somehow, I managed to contain myself. With just two words and perfect delivery, Lucas made the day even more memorable. “Jesus wept” is also two words, and it’s one of the only Bible verses that devout Christians and non-religious people can quote by heart.

Lucas’s childish innocence and relentless curiosity made for a perfectly timed comedic moment. We laughed about it for days afterward, and we will no doubt tell this story to him when he gets older. While it was an amusing moment that balanced the atmosphere of grief in the wake of Grandaddy’s passing, the implications of Lucas’s question also contained deeply philosophical undertones. How would I explain the notion of God to a five-year-old?

Had I still clung to the fundamentalist teachings of my evangelical upbringing, I might have just explained God to a child by rereading The Chronicles of Narnia. C.S. Lewis’ epic saga of a magical wardrobe, an evil witch, a mighty lion, and a shit ton of other creatures certainly captured my imagination as a kid. Its blatantly allegorical version of the Bible made it a staple of my church library, along with VeggieTales and Kirk Cameron movies. You could explain the concepts of God, Jesus, and salvation to a child through the story of Aslan and the four Pevensie children. And if you wanted to potentially fuck them up, you could let them read The Last Battle and get into tons of apocalyptic shit.

I could also show Lucas The Prince of Egypt, which is an awesome movie. Yes, the whitewashed voice casting would’ve never been allowed today, but man, the animation and music are fantastic.

As these examples allude to, my childhood conception of God was epic and fantastical. He was a towering, gray-bearded, otherworldly figure with amazing powers, not unlike Gandalf or Dumbledore. I imagined Him showcasing His powers and vanquishing armies of demons with rays of lightning emanating from His giant fingers.

In case you were wondering if I had a normal childhood, the answer is pretty evident.

As my spiritual views have shifted over the years toward progressive Christianity, my perception and understanding of God have changed. I no longer view God as a towering figure whose only function is to enact judgment on humanity. I’m also not certain He has a beard, even though I like beards and have had one since I was in college. I’m now less concerned with God’s imagery and more with the nature and meaning of God. As an ethereal being who is the ultimate manifestation of absolute love, God is very unlike the millions of people who profess to worship Him, particularly those in the modern Western world. God is not MAGA, nor is He the Democratic Party. As much as we like to place God in a sandbox of our own design, I believe God exists outside the realm of our full comprehension, and that’s not a bad thing.

If I were to answer Lucas’s question to the best of my ability, I would tell him that God is love and peace. Humans aren’t particularly good at embracing either of those values, but I like to think that we could if we tried and worked to understand each other better. I often have more hope for younger generations than I do for the adults who currently run our society, and much of that is due to kids’ natural curiosity. They aren’t afraid to speak their minds, whether at school or while sitting in the front pew of a funeral service. Odds are, they are more likely to comprehend big ideas than we might think.