Voices from above

The Religion page of cnn.com has a piece by a woman who writes that, when God speaks to her, He sounds just like Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion.


Nothing like a voice from a place where the woman are strong, the men are good-looking and all the children are above average to get your attention.

There are lots of ways to hear God's voice. You can hear it in a newborn's cry. In the roar of a waterfall. In the sound of hymns wafting heavenward from a country church. In the voice of Garrison Keillor. Or James Earl Jones. Or, I suppose, Donald Duck. 


If you are one of those people who hears God speaking directly to you, do the rest of us a favor: Spare us the details. Like discussions between a lawyer and his client, those conversations between you and God are privileged and should be kept private. And please, don't tell us God told you to do something. People who go around announcing,"God told me to do this" or "God told me to do that" piss me off big-time.


They're saying God deems them extra special, that they have a closer relationship with Him than those who don't get voice messages, emails, Twitter feeds, Hebrew-inscribed tablets or whatever media God uses to provide them with His marching orders.  


What pisses me off most is that they are saying the rest of us have to accept and support whatever they do because, after all, God told them to do it. 


Such an order would enable a person to, say, steal a Ferrari and claim God wanted him to have it. I know many good folks who say God told them to go to Haiti or Africa or New Orleans to help the unfortunate. I know others who proclaim God ordered them to Hawaii or the Bahamas. A friend told me about a Mary Kay lady who claimed God ordered her to Dubai to teach Islamic women how to apply cosmetics. 


Rick Perry announced God told him to run for president. An endorsement from God is certainly more valuable than one from, say, the AFL-CIO.  Voters in Iowa and New Hampshire didn't buy it and sent his sanctimonious ass back to Texas. Good for them.


I once went to meet a prospective client who brought his mother, who was visiting from out of town, to the meeting. Before we started, she announced she wanted us to hear what God had told her to do that morning. She produced a diary in which she said she wrote down their daily conversations, and read from it. One thing God had told her to do was to ask her son for $5,000. He whipped out his checkbook and wrote her a check. God may have then told her to go to a soup kitchen to donate it. Or, perhaps, to Saks. I never found out because I never went back. 


I'm not saying God doesn't speak to His children. He hasn't spoken directly to me but that could change by the time I finish writing this sentence. 


What I am saying is this: If God speaks to you directly, great. And if He tells you to do something, by all means do it. Just don't tell me about it. I don't want to hear what God told you to do any more than I want to hear about your sex life because it's personal. And, frankly, because it may make me think less of you if I believe you're claiming God told you to do something you wanted to do all along.


Commanding Moses to lead His people out of slavery was one thing. Telling you to go to Disney World is something else. 


Thank you, and have a blessed day.