There I was, with my Titlest 2 hanging precariously over the fringe-like edge of one hellish sand trap.The ball was just yards from an eagle putt on this first hole of my local golf course.What a way to start a day.Halfway between manicured hybrid heaven and a gritty sandbox from hell.It was a drizzly day, dark and overcast.With storm clouds ominous enough to keep all the other golfers away, I was playing in a lonesome onesome.Just as I pulled my wedge back in preparation for a dangerously soft chip shot, another player’s ball came whizzing down into the sand beside me causing a most irritating sand-splash.A few granules stung my face, I dropped my club, and the tiny concussion caused my ball to roll back from the green’s edge and into the sand trap.Furious, I turned toward the tee as two strangely dressed figures hopped into their respective golf carts and started electro-motoring toward me.As I prepared to let the idiots have it for not only endangering my life but also for failing to shout a warning, I realized that neither individual could be classified as a “typical golfer”.They appeared to be clad from head to toe in some shimmering material and were actively disregarding the course policy that restricts golf cart operation to the designated cart paths.Also, they seemed to be racing one another, shouting and flailing their arms as they veered dangerously close to the other’s cart while hunching forward to, I suppose, improve aerodynamics.My anger and eminent verbal bitching spree quickly changed to shock and confusion as they ground their carts to a halt in front of me and jumped out to see precisely where the errant ball had dropped.Up close, their outfits were even more striking and out-of-place, but I still couldn’t quite see either of them clearly.In fact, whenever I tried to stare directly at them to ascertain their features, they seemed to emit a nearly blinding brightness.They bustled around me, kicking up sand as they continued arguing presumably over the placement of the ball.But that’s the thing.I couldn’t understand what they were saying, or even what language they were speaking.They hacked their words out, bellowing and hissing, and then one laughed at the other. The one who had started laughing was wearing flip-flop sandals, and the other, now even more infuriated, wore no shoes at all.And if my eyes stayed fixed upon anything higher than their feet and the ground around them, I experienced something like the sensation one gets after staring at the sun for more than a few seconds.My vision got spotty, I felt ready to sneeze, and my eyelids involuntarily squinted shut.By then, I had followed their movements around by using my peripheral vision and staring at their feet.

“Excuse me, gentlemen, but what language is that you’re speaking?” I inquired while looking away.

Well of course, I speak Hebrew, and he speaks Arabic.

But unlike you and other gentlemen, we speak and understand all languages.Tell us, golferman, which ball is ours.

“Well, this Titlest is mine.That one over there is the ball that nearly hit me.It’s yours.And you’re supposed to wait until the party ahead of you has cleared out before hitting balls in their direction.”

See, now you’ve almost killed another feeble and innocent human being.

They started arguing unintelligibly again until I chimed in, “uh, who are you guys?”

Alas, we’re not guys at all.I am the one and only ruler of the universe, father of mankind, creator of all things and administrator of justice, but perhaps known to you as the great Allah.

And I am the true creator of human beings, originator of life and all existence as it is known to humans, deliverer of persecuted peoples, Jehovah, but the modern translation of my name is poignantly God.

“Uh…I’m Danny.Pleased to meet you, Sirs.”

Shalom

Salaam.

Very well, Danny the golferman, pray tell which of us is viewed with greater respect, fear, and love amongst your fellow human population.

“Uh…well…gee…I don’t want to offend anybody…”

Just spit it out, boy.

“Most of the people in this country pray to God, not Allah.”

Aha, you stubborn, dirty-faced old goat!I told you that it is I who has the most power over humanity.

“But actually, the world is full of the followers of Islam, too.They call themselves Muslims, and they are, in many ways, more devout in their beliefs and following of you, Mister…umm…Allah.

Take that, you pompous, Aryan-cultivating has-been, worshipped by a bunch of wishy-washy believers!

“Excuse me, gentlemen…err…Your Highnesses, why are you here?”

Well, to play golf, of course.

“But…umm…isn’t there a lot of…uh…more important stuff going on in the world?”

Yes, yes of course there is, but you must be familiar with our respective hands-off approaches to running the universe.Are you not familiar with our most profound gift to mankind, the ability to shape one’s fate with free will and reason?

“Uh…sure, I know about man’s free will to choose, but what about miracles and mercy?What about all those people who’ve been murdered in the past few months?All of those bombs falling and planes exploding?Family members crying, refugees crawling, and men sacrificing their lives for causes they credit to you two and your respective ideals and forms of justice?”

Well, Danny the golferman, it seems you have no lack of questions for us.We shall ask you a question and if you can answer it correctly, we will answer all of yours.Why is your ball here in the sand when a more advantageous position would certainly be nearer to that hole over there?

“Well…uh…it WAS on the green until your ball caused me to get pelted with sand and…”

Now, now…we needn’t any excuses.Just tell us why your ball is NOT presently in or near the cup.

“Okay, I give up. Why?”

Simply put, Danny, you are limited by the rules of your game.You must play this ball wherever it lies.And it is indeed small enough and lightweight enough to be affected greatly by any or all of the naturally occurring environmental factors like wind and barometric pressure, gravity and grass, just to name a few.Be the ball, Danny, and realize that by giving you humans free will, we’ve restricted ourselves to a few history-altering chip shots, many of which are affected by natural forces, evolutionary, environmental or otherwise.We’ve fashioned the most potentially perfect golf ball—mankind—and driven it near the most beautiful green in all of existence—this earthly dimension.But somehow, some way, it has wound up just short of the glory of our perfection and righteous intentions. In the sand trap. Or on the beach, as you golfers facetiously put it.Call it a nasty headwind, bad karma, or misplaced free will.But the question is not how you have found yourself in the sand, Danny, but how you shall get yourself out of it.How you humankind shall find your way onto the green and nearer the prize.

“The prize?But can’t there be only one?Why are there two of you, and why were you arguing with one another if you’re such perfect beings?”

The fact that there are two of us causes you some consternation.Are you certain that there are two of us, Danny?Perhaps he is I, and I am he.Perhaps you see what you already believe is true, or what history has created within your consciousness.Is it not possible that our competitiveness is a function of YOUR world’s belief in our perceived rivalry?Were it not for the division of religions amongst men, perhaps we would have appeared before you as only one being.

“Okay, sure, but I can see that each of you has two feet, and you raced up here in two separate golf carts.” 

Yes, of course we did, Danny, but look around you and back to the fairway.Do you see another ball?Are we not sharing just one golf ball in our game today?

“Wow…”

Wow, indeed, Danny, the golferman.

“Well…uh…wouldn’t that mean that the proverbial egg came before the chicken?Or, in this case, that the ball came before the golfer?You know…like ‘we believe in god, therefore he exists’ kinda thing?

Be careful, Danny.Lightning works in mysterious ways, especially on golf courses.Our objective existence is not the same as your subjective perception of how we exist.Again, simply stated, you see us as you want to see us, but our infinite presence as a universal force transcends all of your limited ideas, imaginations, and artistic renderings of us.A thousand years to you humans is like a day to us.And every few days we send a messenger to spell it out for you all, but somehow you seem to muck it all up.Everybody seems to get the message perfectly and things go great for a while.But then you all just slip back into sinful selfishness, pretentious delusions of domination, and ethnic and cultural battles for superiority.

“But what about the Bible, the Koran, the book of Mormon, the Jews, and those Jehovah’s witnesses?How are we supposed to know what’s right?It seems like they’re all trying to convince everybody that their religion is the best and only true religion.”

And yet, with so many choices, your world is still full of non-believers.It even seems that the recent tragedies of which you spoke have caused a great many fair weather fans amongst those of you reared with either the Bible or the Koran.Such a travesty to twist love and mercy into hate and vengeance. 

“Yeah, I suppose.But I still can’t tell which religion you want me to believe.”

Danny, remember your free will.Have you studied these religions and their messages?

“Uh…I was baptized catholic, went to a Christian high school, been up in Oral Robert’s prayer tower, visited Israel with my Jewish best friend, and lots of Jehovah’s witnesses have knocked on my door.” 

Your frustration is apparent in your jocularity, Danny, but still you fail to see that our messages are the same; treat others as you would like to be treated, and cherish life instead of destroy it.If you would not want someone to tell you that you were wrong to believe in something, should you then point out the apparent inconsistencies in the religions of others?Mankind has taken the ideal pursuit of a higher-powered truth and transformed it into a self-righteous contest of religious conversions, a futile race against eternity to fashion empires of influence and glorify charismatic men.But that is all wrong.We do not live in your churches, your mosques, or your temples.We live in your hearts and minds.We are not glorified and praised in your tithes or your tax-deductible donations, your manifest destinies in fruition or your door-to-door conversions. We are glorified and praised in your actions, your kindness, and your generosity.If you field questions instead of sewing answers, than you shall truly reap a bounty of followers and bevy of believers.All of you are our creatures, our blessed creations.Each of you has the ability to rise above your warring and animalistic evolutionary roots and strive to make your world a better place for all of humankind.We have entrusted you with reason, higher level thinking, and that spiffy opposable thumb.But just look at what you have accomplished.Mass destruction and genocide, horrible corruption and disproportionate standards of living, the creation and ostentatious proliferation of weapons powerful enough to decimate all of you, all of our creations, as well as render this planet uninhabitable for all forms of life for generations to come.Why have you embraced and fostered national and ethnic solidarity at the expense of worldwide humanity and your fellow mankind?Why have you chosen subjugation, enslavement, alienation, discrimination, intimidation, and ultimately destruction?Fear, pride, and money, that is why.You push technology in war and weaponry for no more reason than the fear of an enemy who is no different, genetically speaking, than you are.You are too proud to accept others from outside of your individual tribes or to acknowledge the legitimacy and value of cultural diversity.And finally, you care for little more than precious money.You steal it, fight for it, withhold it, manipulate others with it, and worship its filth-ridden power more often than you distribute it to the people and places where it’s needed the most.Why must you pick pockets with your opposable thumbs and manipulate power and information with your gift of reason?

By this time, the clouds overhead had begun to crackle and flash, spitting bitter raindrops on my $300 custom-made golf shoes.It seemed that the weight of the world had begun to fall, cold and wet from the heavens.I sat down in the sand beside my ball and began to sob. 

THIS WAS A FICTIONAL ACCOUNT.I DON’T GOLF, AND I’VE NEVER MET EITHER OF THE AFOREMENTIONED DIETIES.BUT I HAVE BEEN UP IN ORAL ROBERTS UNIVERSITY’S PRAYER TOWER WHERE PASTOR ROBERTS RETREATED AFTER CLAIMING THAT GOD WOULD TAKE HIM AWAY IF THE CONGREGATION FAILED TO RAISE EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS BY MARCH 31, 1986.

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