I think the day after God made the sun, the third day, he woke up to it’s wooing the following morning and began forming the fish and the birds, resigning, “Back to the ol’ grind.”  It must have been a rough day, the fourth.  Fish, for all of their intricacies, look mostly like fish; and birds resemble other birds with slight variations.  I have this vivid onomatopoeia relationship with God, where I make him speak, and his words become truth; a certain kind of truth that fades away after a day or maybe two at the most.  But for a while I hold an animated version of God who looks sadly like me, and he’s facing whatever current dilemma I happen to be warring against.

I am sometimes surprised by his salty language and the fearless way he handles his problems.  The thing I admire most about my version of God is the way he chews off his tongue rather than uttering “Damn it,” because when he says it there are serious consequences.  However I dress him up, the one super-power he is always endued with is patience.  That shred of reality translates nicely into my two-dimensional cartoon of him.  The everlasting patience makes me envious and hungry for fruit that I am probably not supposed to eat.  Yes, in this particular way, I want to be like God.

I am sitting down to begin Day 10 of creation.  My patience is inevitably thin.  I am cranky.  The Cleveland sky is as tenebrous as ever; leading me to God this morning with some serious questions, like, “If you’re so creative, explain the tedious gray over my house.  There are other colors, you know?  This place is so poorly lit; even the shades of brown that should bear names ranging from muddy amber to bistre, cordovan to burnt sienna are just plain tan.”  He is no hurry to acquiesce to my complaints.

So my personal Day 10 of creation begins with a God who doesn’t ignore complaints, just the complainers like this junior-wanna-be-writer, who wail for dead leaves described as russet and bronze.  During creation sometimes you must accept the temporary tan; He tells me as much, “Hey, you should have a little bit of patience.  You know how long I had to think before I painted something mahogany?  A long time!  So write the words ‘darkish tan’ and shut up.  You think Day 4 was a blast of creativity?  It was all pectoral fins and wings!”  Of course this is the edited version of what he actually said.  Before I worked his words into three sentences they were much more graphic, and he spoke in one run-on sentence.  Aloud, I lament all the editing I must do for him, and he gives me a Bronx cheer.  He is very pleased with himself, God – my version, and the real one.  He also digs me.  And you too.  He told me to tell you so, but I can’t repeat what he said about you.  You wouldn’t believe the language he uses sometimes!