The Trials of Moses

Can you just imagine how Moses must have felt when he came down from the mountaintop after being singed by the Burning Bush, lugging those heavy stone tablets along with him? I mean, just put yourself in his sandals for a minute. This guy has worked MIRACLES for these folks, for crying in a pillar of light! Parting the seas was just one thing, and don’t think that was no big deal either. If only Noah could have done that, eh?

But here he comes, trudging down the hill after a relatively brief absence from their midst, and they’re all down there partying it up and worshipping a Golden Calf, of all things!

“Excuse me? Did you people drink blood-contaminated river water while I was gone? Were the swarms of locusts not enough to get your attention? Did the aliens plant psychotic thought seeds in your thick noggins while I was away? Hello? Anybody home? Knock, knock”!

I would be very upset with the whole damn lot of them, that’s what I think. Not only that, but I would probably be very depressed too. Talk about betrayal – you give, you give, and you give some more. You even part the friggin’ seas for them, OK? Then you turn your back on them for a few days, and out of the Friggin’ Blue the Almighty God has taken on the graven image of a Holy Cow! In the first place, how did they even have time to MAKE that stupid thing while I was away, and have they lost their friggin’ minds or something?

“THANKS A LOT, YOU CHILDISH CHILDREN OF ISRAEL! JUST SEE IF I GO TO THE PROMISED LAND WITH YOU AFTER THIS TRAVESTY OF A SHAM OF A MOCKERY OF AN INSULT”! (Or was that his even his decision to make in the first place? I can’t recall at the moment).

Anyhoo, what about poor old Job? I wouldn’t put myself in his sandals or I might get leprosy or something! I mean HE should’ve written that book about “when bad things happen to good people” and then HE would have gotten all those royalties instead of that other guy! Because a lot of really depressing things happened to him, even though he was basically a good old boy at heart (if you believe what the Bible says, and I do for the most part).

I mean, every time he turned around he was being visited by a pestilence or some other grave misfortune like that. “Why? Why me, Lord? What have I done to deserve such a hellish scenario unfolding as my experience down here on Earth?” (or the ancient Hebrew equivalent, which I would type in here but I can’t find that funny character set right now).

I think God was just testing him, that’s all, like He/She/It (the new politically correct version of the Divine Pronoun, by the way) does to me all the time. Sure, I’ve never been visited by a plague, nor have I had any locusts descend on me like that. It just FEELS that way sometimes, you know what I mean?

You know I’ve used General Custer and O.J. in his Bronco as classic examples of justifiable paranoia in the extreme, right? Well not only was Job convinced that “everybody” was out to get him, but eventually it became obvious to him that He/She/It was out to get him too!

I’m glad there were no petards back in those days or Job might have found one to hoist himself on. Talk about major depression with psychotic symptomatic overtones! Jody Foster had NOTHING on him – he couldn’t even sell his story to the Hollywood of Judea back in those days, or cash in his insurance policy on the old homestead. No, he was up the old River Jordan without a proverbial paddle, my friend!

If they had Effexor™ back then I’ll bet it might have relieved many of his more extreme depressive symptoms, and an anti-psychotic would have calmed all those delusions about how “He/She/It is out to get me” and all that stuff. The fact that it was true would surely have been missed by today’s health professional, who would have shunted him off to a Psychotics Anonymous meeting to “tell his story” to the rest of the loonies!

That’s why I never tell people that “He/She/It” is out to get me, or even that “He/She/It” is on my side, or is Talking to me somehow, like through a freeway billboard or something crazy like that. Otherwise I might be accused of having developed the full-blown psychosis of claiming to BE He/She/It, like the guy who chairs the Friday night PA discussion meeting! The one with the tattoo on his arm! That guy is REALLY out of it!! (?)

Poor old Moses. Poor old Job. I’m glad everything turned out OK for both of them in The End, aren’t you?