Hey, God: Got a Minute? by John Barr

From the Publisher

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection." - Poincare :
-- One who professes to have the "true" knowledge has an obligation to fully and fairly consider opposing opinion. If he fails to do so, if he fails to challenge himself with all the doubts and counter-arguments that man can devise, then the beliefs he holds are less than commendable. They are little more than recordings in a stagnant mind, to be replayed upon Pavlov's call.


About the Author

The author, John Barr-a nom de plume, subscribes more to the Poincare quote than to any of the many choices of faith available to him. In some ways, Harold, the story's other main character, is himself and Harold's frustrations are his own. John has published novels and short stories under another name (also a nom de plume.)

Blosm.com

A humorous quick read...Interesting approach...Amusing and thought-provoking...Andy Rooney could have performed this.

Aphelion E-zine

I fell in love with it from the first paragraph...An interesting discourse.

Scribes World - Michael Thal

Harold has a unique opportunity. He has God's ear. Let's peek in on a typical conversation:

Harold: Hey, God, we need some help with the mess we got going down here.
God: The help you seek can be found among yourselves. I am not here to play human, Harold, as you are not here to play me.
Harold: We can't call on you, God?
God: You can call on me all you want, but you must rely on yourselves.
Harold: I gotta admit, God, I don't understand that.
God: Someday you will, Harold. Someday you will.

To a question like, "Is God your first name or your family name?" God responds with a heavenly (sigh).

John Barr, through his Harold character, confronts God with timely questions.

Harold: There are these guys who try to get to paradise in a hurry. They get so wrapped up in the way of looking at things, they go crazy if they don't get to die during an attack.
God: Do you really imagine I would be impressed by someone who tries to please me by hurting others?

This is just a small portion of the discourse between a man seeking the truth and his God who teaches that humanity's problems must be solved by the men and women who create them.

Hey, God; Got a Minute is an amusing, thought provoking narrative between a man and a deity who has more questions than answers. Just under 150 pages, this is the perfect gift for any one who muses about the deeper issues of life.

Midwest Book Review

Hey God; Got A Minute?...is a sometimes lighthearted, sometimes introspective, always thought-provoking and attention engaging discourse of one man's conversations with God. Offering a series of thought-provoking questions, universal dilemmas, and unique insights worthy of contemplation, Hey God; Got A Minute? is an eminently accessible and enthusiastically recommended reading -- the kind that lingers in the heart and mind long after the book is finished and set back upon the shelf.

Product Details

• Read an Excerpt
• Read a Sample Chapter

Read an Excerpt

I tried to lighten up the conversation by talking about the Big Bang, the thing that got the whole universe going. But when I said, "It must've scared the hell out of you when it happened," he stared at me for a long time then woke me up.

Read a Sample Chapter

All of this is true; I swear to the big guy it is. Well, maybe not exactly true. I mean, a lot of it is from memory and thus could stray just a tad from what was actually said--by God as well as by me. And maybe some of the feelings more represent my take than God's, like I almost lost it when I saw the outline of a frown pushing through the glow surrounding his face (even now it scares me to think how close I might have come to encouraging the old heat treatment).

Anyway, what kicked it off was I fell asleep one night a little down about life in general and weary of all the conflicting thoughts that kept bouncing around in my head, thoughts about religion, why we're here and what all this stuff means, I mean, really means. You know, one of those times when you're flooded with doubts you gotta admit are there but don't feel right about bringing up (you don't even want to form the questions in your mind for fear you might actually ask them and in doing so tempt some kind of lightning bolt your way).

But the doubts are there just the same, and if you try to pretend they're not, it just makes you itchy inside, like somebody's calling for boarding on the last train to heaven and you don't even know what kind of ticket to buy.

Now don't get me wrong; it isn't like I doubt the whole shebang. Heck, I'm not that far gone. I just doubt everything I've ever been told by everyone I've ever known. I mean, there are a lot of people out there screaming their heads off about what's what in this world and the next, and most of them have no doubt whatsoever about what they're saying, even when what they're saying goes against what other guys (who also have no doubt whatsoever) are saying.

Until this thing with the big guy happened--which I'm gonna tell you about in a minute--I had just about given up. I had no one to turn to, no one to ask, no one who wouldn't hit me with the same old platitudes and half-answers. "Just have faith, Harold," they'd say, which to them meant have faith in what they were saying, not in what anybody else was saying.

Anyway, I just turned sixty, my back hurts from all the exercises I did to strengthen my legs, and my hair, which had already turned a horrible shade of dirty gray, is now falling out. Plus my feet hurt, my eyes see a little less each year, and I'm getting shorter. This all combines to tell me that I need to make sense out of what I am and where I'm going and that I'd better do it soon before whoever's keeping score decides the game is over. "Time's up, Harold. And oh so sorry, you should have followed religion 5,642. Step closer to the furnace, please."

Anyway, the problem I'm trying to tell you about started for me at an early age. I was even more confused about religion then than I am now, and when I tried talking to my friends about it (I remember asking, "If God can do no wrong but can do anything he wants to do then why can't he do wrong? I mean, if he really, really wanted to?") all I got was laughter and ridicule. They didn't much like the questions (and couldn't answer them anyway) so they responded in the only way they knew: they attacked the one doing the questioning. Enough episodes of this and I knew to bury my curiosity in favor of going along with the crowd. I liked the guys who were telling me the religious facts of life, so backing off was no big deal.

But one day I moved to another town and a new set of friends who believed something different but who sounded just as sure about what they were saying as the guys I left behind. When that happened a third time, I got to wondering what gives. I mean, they were all good guys, but what they said just couldn't be, not when you viewed it all together. Some said black, some said white, some said something in-between--I was young, but not so young that I couldn't see something wrong with that. When for the second time in my life I got on their case about it, this time to question how so many different religious opinions could be right at the same time, I got to see my first funny look: a look that said, How could I not understand? How could I question the unquestionable? (I figured out that the "unquestionable" meant what they believed, not what my earlier friends believed.)

That's when everybody began picking on me. A few guys got angry, but most of them just stared at me as if I had brain cells leaking out of my ears. It was funny to watch the progression; their eyes would widen and their smiles would become fixed and unsure as if they'd just cut one loose and were afraid the teacher had heard. Then, and it's interesting how many of them did this, they'd take a step backward to avoid an accidental hit from a lightning bolt aimed at me.

But my playmates are not the guys I complained to God about. I still like those guys, all of them. Besides, we were kids; we didn't know any better; we'd all been brainwashed by our parents. The gut aches I feel now come from grown-ups, the guys who are doing the brainwashing. The guys who stab their fingers at the sky, reveal enough of their eyes to make little kids fear the dark, wave whatever book they think proves their point, and cry out their message to the world, a message that demonstrates love of their own ideas, scorn for anyone who can't see the wisdom of those ideas, and reasons why you should give them money.

What really bothers me is there are so many of them and so few of me.

Anyway, getting back to the night I'm trying to tell you about, I woke up in my dream (that's exactly what it was; I was dreaming then there I was, as awake as I'd ever been in my life) and found myself standing alone at the edge of a rolling puff of cloud watching rambling rivers and winding roads run a neat pattern through multicolored patches of farmland far below. The only company I had was a gentle breeze, which, because there were no trees or stuff like that to catch the wind and make a noise, I felt more than I heard. As I stood there watching, I began to feel a need to make the most of this before the magic of the moment changed, before the pushing and shoving of a celestial rush-hour began.

But before I had time to decide how to do that, along walks the big guy himself, God. Because of the light radiating from him, I couldn't see much, but I knew right away it was him. (Or her; I never did get the answer to that one.) Well, I gotta tell you, this surprised me some. It isn't often that this kind of thing happens, not to me it doesn't (to the guys running around in robes collecting money, it supposedly happens all the time).

But anyway, I seized on this great idea, the idea that this meeting was preordained; I mean, it must have been, right? The big guy must have guided us together just so I could hit him with my questions. I felt pretty important at that moment, even holy. And I figured who am I to risk angering God by passing up an ordainment, or whatever you're supposed to call it. So I grabbed the moment and got the ball rolling. As you'll soon see, once it started rolling it wasn't so easy to stop.

"Hey, God; got a minute?"