A five-point prayer

1

Dear God, make a wave come out of the ocean and save your ghostwriter. Then save the rest of the world. Think of what your mother gave to us, when she birthed you. Rage for us. Catch the wave and send it to us. Roll it usward, paddle it. Give it to everybody. One saving wave. Make it rush around the planet. Park it in the lot, put some money in the meter. Punish everything erroneous, but spare your ecclesia so that we can accost people. Rent us a cave to live in.

If the world ends, let us bring forth Seeds of Promise upon septuagenarians, without having to make contact. If it rains, invite the chickens into the kitchen. Let scientists have extra brains outside of their face. Help lovers no longer miss each other.

Like angioplasty, O God, you are breaking our heart. Why are you sending us back into captivity, after you rescued us the first time, and we got released for our good behavior? Why are you reintroducing us to our enemies? Send us a gated yard, and a sign that reads “Beware of large-throated dog or I’ll feed him your head.”

Why abandon your people? It makes no sense.

Look: you were supposed to be our collective bridegroom. That should be pleasant: tender love, and so on. But you are biting our lips with blood screaming from kisses. Why even take the time to say your proposal, if this was your intention?

You came down from heaven and said: “Will you marry me, Betty?” And then when you saw how interested we were in the subject of comparative religion, you swore at us and called us a derogative slang term for “loose woman.”

Regain your composure, O LORD. Stop acting like you are only half man plus another half that was transplanted from a monkey. Be 100% god-man, like in the olden days.

Never take more than a century to rescue your people.

2

God, be like a big bus whose driver is drinking cognac. Go around corners at high speed. Act as though you are physically impaired, to lure our enemies, and then when they are near enough, rise up and crush them. Terrify them by showing them the size of your will. Chase our enemies like a jungle cat.

Where, you ask? Do you mean: Where should you chase them? I say: make them jump and scream like young ladies in a slasher movie.

Make your fashion high and loud. Stand before us in church looking fabulous. Take a cloud down and use it as a pillow. Give us a state of mind that feels like midsummer at the beach: but not within the bodies that we currently possess; let us instead be blessed with new, attractive bodies. Make this a fact, in reality: It is possible, for you. We believe you can do it. Build an auto-line machine and have it trace a good boundary for our physiques: You won’t need to lift a finger; everything can be accomplished electronically.

As for that serpentine black-hooded folk-person slithering near the guillotine, create a yoke that fits him, so that we can be friends with him without fear and then release him on our enemies.

Grab a timbrel and join the dance. Make our appearance look glossy, all around. Give us celebrities who are enviable. Make the downtown area of our city habitable again. Whip those who hate us.

Come around the mountain, O LORD our God, when you finally do come. Look tough, so that our enemies cannot devise a fiercer deity. Bring all your horses. Drape yourself in thick gold chains. Take a timbrel, like I said: join the dance, to let our enemies know that you are on OUR side.

If you die, we will shave your corpse so that you slide into the water easier. We trust that you shall not remain in the underworld forever. Come back and dance with us again, someday.

Do not behave as a vampire, but come back alive for real. Transcend your nature. The gods of our enemies flee when the day breaks: do not emulate them. Be our smoking fiery warrior, fresh from Hell. Be the one who defeated the Devil. Burn all our enemies into the ground: make them eat dust.

3

Make the souls of our enemies rack-mountable, so that we can display them in Heaven. Give us sharp lances. Come along with us when we invade neighboring galaxies. It is better when you fight alongside of us, in person.

Use your heat gun to telecommunicate messages of conquest back to our homebase. Master the intricacies of both civil and criminal law. Turn the dials on the control panel of your spaceship to create rhythmic pulses that our enemies’ wives cannot resist: lure them to shuffle over to us and aggregate, amalgamate; then flip those switches on the panel to persuade these women to transfer their allegiance to us. Guide us and inspire us, so that we may treat them right. For, if our enemies ever come to rescue their wives back, it would look best if the ladies refuse to go with their former husbands and instead choose to stay with us, their captors, willfully.

O God, be like a buoy in a pool, and bob when the auspicious hour is upon us. We need to know when to make the next move. Success in business requires preparing as much as possible, but then also recognizing that there are elements beyond human control: We are counting on YOU to bind fast all these supernatural matters.

Let me now give a bit of advice to our enemies. Hey, enemies, here’s a tip: Say your prayers when you’re in your closet at home, and not in public when you’re at church. When you’re in church, you should be singing praises to God for blessing you so tremendously, not whispering timid prayers for help like a loser.

And pray fast. God already knows what you’re going to say, so don’t bore him with slow prayers. You get on God’s nerves, O enemies, the way you pray. You repeat the same phrases a lot. You don’t even care to make your words sound pleasant to the LORD God’s ear.

Have you ever seen those wooden chairs that shatter easily? (They use them in slapstick movies and pro wrestling matches.) Oh, my dear enemy, I so badly want to walk up to you, while you’re sitting in church, and break one of those chairs over your head.

I believe in the Old Time Religion. When I throw too many chairs, God appears and announces that he approves of my actions. You say: “This is the wrong God; he’s in the wrong church!” No, he’s not. Sorry, but this is the only God that there is. I swear by Heaven. Now all your children are crying.

I walk straight through brick walls with my God. We bash icons off the podium, when we’re onstage prophesying. All the cops in your community now convert to our cult. I’ll baptize them all myself; I don’t mind getting wet.

God gave me this gift: it’s a device that parses any speech and shows where the lies are. So now you can’t lie to me anymore, because I hold up my gadget and catch all your deceptions. These cops are on my side; you’re going to jail.

Very beautiful popular actresses all join my church (not yours), and we all sue you for millions of dollars.

The marquee sign outside of our church displays a terrifying truth.

4

God is whipping, ripping, flipping, and dipping. Behold God: zipping and unzipping. Nobody can stop our God. Go ahead and try. He grips you and chops you.

Our God is on autopilot, flying violently. Abundant arrangements of flowers are left in his wake, because he is still essentially a life-giving force for good. And he hates all enemies.

My God is never silent. Your God is silent all the time: your God barely talks – I’ve never heard him say anything. Make him talk, if you can. While we wait, I’ll show you how powerful my God’s words are:

When my God speaks, any thing that his words denote instantly comes to exist. He says “Golden earring!” and soon the whole crowd is sporting jewelry. He says “Solid radar love, do what you’re told!” and then that entity goes and performs the bidding of whoever shall instruct it, for the rest of its career. My God says “Hot cold never dull!” and weather is born. “White dragon asleep!” and all the stars twinkle forth. “Hayabusa and Medusa!” You get the picture.

Just by shouting, my God created one of the largest music festivals in the world, which ended up also being one of the longest-running in the United States. Moreover, he made that thing that they call “Hula-hoop baby Buddha” and other tangible abominations.

But it seems that your God still isn’t talking. He hasn’t created a single thing. My God persuaded molten lead to go up and down all over the earth, while your God is dumbstruck.

But like I said in the beginning of this psalm, we got a nice glossy 8-by-10 photo of our congregation looking formidable, with God standing at our side like he’s our comandante. And he made me the president of our cult. We’re all well-built, and we all keep handguns tucked into our belts. If your congregation comes and threatens us with baseball bats, we shoot off your knobs to make you reposition your grip, and we then shoot off more of the handle so that you must keep choking up with your hands, till there’s no bat left.

I never apologize for using my black handgun to protect myself, plus a stick of dynamite. God rescued us from our enemies once by dividing the ocean: we walked through it on dry sand; and then, when our enemies pursued us, God closed it back up, so that the water fell on our foes, and they all drowned.

I love hanging out with my God on the street corner. We listen to big beats on our boombox, and slang dope, and shoot our guns at enemy gangs. The name of our posse is “America’s Hope.” We’re a really tough cult. We consist mostly of retired traveling salesmen. If you permit us to approach your front door, we will open our briefcase and show you our wares. We sell wristwatches and Bibles. Housewives ogle and ponder the cost, before making a purchase.

Then, since their husbands aren’t home at that moment, the housewives take us by the hand and guide us back to their bedroom; and my God blesses our union with healthy children. You don’t even need to clean them; they’re already immaculate. (When they come out, newborns are normally covered in blood.)

5

O God, give them a purity guarantee. Clear the room and show them who’s the chronic king of tyranny. If anyone disagrees with you, hit them with British common law.

People often ask me: “Does God have a human claw?” Truly, I tell you: only prima facie. Trespass and find out.

He’s the king on the bench, wigged out and litigating. Left and right, people are being sent to prison for shit that God himself did. (My God, not yours.) God shouts “Middlesex County clerk!” and that individual begins to preexist.

My God commands the justices of the Supreme Court to dance, while shooting his gun. My God loots money from them. He builds a new computer. He judges the female Supreme Court Justices by their looks. He makes diamonds float in the air. He makes pets do stunts.

When a harlot approached and said to my God “Gimme what I really want.” Instead of berating her or stoning her to death, my God gave her Romanism and appointed Christ to be her jurist.

God and I then took the harlot to Candle Island where all the wise guys are imprisoned in crystal.

My God is terrifying, just like a big bloody werewolf. He slew the sheriff and raised all the taxes on the rich. He’s not afraid to use his teeth. All the girls whom I had a crush on in grade school believe in my God.

I found out that you can employ magic mushrooms to reconstruct an army tank. We drove over a building in the financial district. God fashioned an enormous piano, and then he placed dishes of spinach on certain keys, so that when creatures crept forth from the woods to eat them, the notes resounded, thus creating an eerie melody.

When God spoke the word, a black hawk came flying down to the little house on the prairie and began ripping her prey.

My God gives hash to Olympian athletes. My God has nice hair with a nice shape. My God will wine and dine you.

Now you’re all emotional, because your God never answered your prayers: your God stood you up. Your God probably tripped over the cord of his hair curler and accidentally strangled himself. My God plays hockey with a team of Canadian bear herders.

My God is the Queen of Celts and the Prince of Wales. He gives you purgatory in a bucket: he sails over and dumps it right on your head. Then he brings you to the epicenter. You two go floating down the river well.

Meanwhile, God taught me how to do miracles. My first miracle was making tires fall from the sky.

Then I build myself a mechanical hand to replace my real one. I cross the wires, and it expands and transforms into a giant fan. It is now the engine on a war plane. I force the sun to rise early and make the sand hot; then I position a garden hose so that the water trickles out and evaporates from all the heat. This covers the landscape with a fog.