So I’m on this long-distance phone call with God and I tell Him: “I must say I find your treatment of my family and consequently myself quite heavy-handed. Not counting my parents — that’s to be understood — but taking my two brothers, my only son and now my wife, who got me through the other deaths, leaving me without any immediate family and not even a wife to help me get through the rest of life.”

“Be reasonable,” He says, “I can’t look out for every family and every individual on that virtually invisible speck of dirt you call Earth. Do you know how many galaxies I’ve got to run?”

“Nine hundred billion,” I chip in.

He becomes reflective and says, “That many, huh? I never did the math — no wonder I’m tired all the time.” Then he jumps back in with: “Anyway, you don’t even believe in me — why should I care about you?”

“My wife believed in you, and I pray for faith, but it always seems like I’m talking into a dead phone.”

This incurs His wrath. “You mean like now!” He snaps and hangs up.

God hangs up on me! Can you believe it?!

Editor’s note: The writer of this bit of irreverence has a snowball’s chance in hell of ever getting to Heaven.