37 Questions for the Almighty

“God?” I stepped out into the clearing in the woods. “I want to thank you. Thank you, God, for putting Ben into my life! He is exactly what I asked for! Now we’re engaged and I’m so glad. Everything was smooth sailing since the day we met. I just have one question.

“Why, oh why, did I have to meet him at the same time I started menopause?

“Ten years ago I quit my job to find someone. I traveled the world to date in different countries. I went to a singles event every week! I hired match-makers on every continent. I tried everything that anybody recommended. In the end, meeting Ben while walking in the forest was the best day of my life. But why couldn’t it have happened ten years earlier?”

I dropped my hands and looked up to the sky. The clouds parted, and suddenly the most luminous glow appeared out of the blue.

“Justine,” said a voice coming from the Heavens. “I’m glad that you appreciate Ben. I wanted to put him in your life ten, even twenty years earlier. But I couldn’t.”

“Why not?” I asked, my voice coming out more shrill than I intended.

“Ben hates long hair. You needed to cut your hair first. But you kept growing it long.

“I tried to tell you. Your hair got caught in trees, and one time you almost had to cut it to get out. I put women with short hair in your life, surrounding you with images of what yours could look like. Sometimes I put words in your mother’s mouth to suggest it. But you wouldn’t listen. You kept growing your hair.”

“Really?” I asked. “That’s the reason? It had to wait until I cut my hair!?”

“If he had met you sooner, he wouldn’t have fallen in love with you the way he did.”

“That’s all I needed to do?”

“Well, there was one more thing,” said God.

“What else?”

“You kept singing in a Soprano voice. Justine, I made you an Alto. I knew that you wanted to sing a song on your wedding day, but it had to be in the right key.”

“That’s why I didn’t get married when I was young and fertile? You wanted me to sing Alto? God, why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I left signs for you to see,” said God. “There was graffiti on the sidewalk outside your house, that you walked past every day, that was the word Alto. Your singing teacher suggested it to you, but you insisted on continuing to sing Soprano. I even gave you a prophetic dream, where a turtle said to you ‘Sing Alto, Sing Alto,’ over and over again, but by the time you woke up you forgot it.

“Besides, you needed to discover both those things on your own.”

“What about all the effort I put in?” I asked. “I did a silent meditation retreat. I got in touch with my inner child and healed her. I made amends with my parents so that I would be on good relations with them. I worked through my anger issues. I learned how to communicate non-violently. I expressed my emotions through art. I practiced Authentic Relating and Radical Transparency. Every night I recited a forgiveness prayer until I held no more grudges, and instantly forgave everyone. I cleansed my heart of all encrustations of evil. I took weekend seminars and healing courses and read self-help books until I worked out my every issue, apologized and made amends with everyone I did wrong. With every new program I was on, I thought, ‘Maybe this is the one issue I need to correct before I’m ready for marriage.’ Well? Was I right?”

“Those things were great,” said God. “Don’t get Me wrong, you’ll be happy you did them. But in order to meet Ben, you really had to do two things: Cut your hair short and sing in your Alto voice.

“And now, aren’t you glad you figured it out?”

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Today is thirty-seven days, which are five weeks and two days, of the Omer.

This story was written as part of a 49-day project of counting the Omer. It is entirely a work of fiction, and not at all how I imagine my ultimate conversation with the Divine to look once I figure out whatever that one stupid thing is.

In the merit of the Omer Count that I have counted today, may there be corrected whatever blemish I have caused in the sefirah Gevurah shebiYesod, Judgement within Bonding. May I be cleansed and sanctified with the holiness of Above, and through this may abundant bounty flow in all the worlds. And may it correct our lives, spirits, and souls from all sediment and blemish; may it cleanse us and sanctify us with exalted holiness. Amen, Selah!