God’s anonymity is a legal necessity. Consider the lawsuits.
Think of it: You’ve just created earth and sea, built the most
dangerous playground in history, and you’re about to populate it with cunning
delinquents with a thirst for justice. You’re considering opening a customer
service department, hiring a publicist, when… What’s that? You say you’ve been
wronged by volcano, fire, earthquake, struck by lightning, drowned or
shipwrecked, fallen and can’t get up, and you’d like to talk with God’s
attorneys? Sorry, no listing.
I’ve spent the past few weeks finishing a playhouse in the backyard
for my own and the neighborhood kids. I’m flat on my back in the loft these
days, screwing the ceiling joists with ½” ply. I could spend the rest of the
summer sanding edges, padding corners, illuminating emergency exits, but why?
Someone is going to get hurt. Likewise, someone is going to fall from the ropes
and ladders I’ve strung from one of the property’s most climbable trees. (I’ve
been in the crown and touched the sky; how can I deny my children such a pure
joy?)
My wife and I live in a tony suburb where there’s an attorney through
the woods in every direction. I suppose if I were smart, I’d hang a sign from
every stick: CAUTION, RAMBLE AT YOUR OWN RISK. Better yet: I wouldn’t allow any
kids to play in “my” woods. Let them play video games while the summer sun sifts
morning and evening through the leaves; at least nobody will sue.
The truth stings a bit: For breaking limbs, gashing heads, and meeting
sin-selling snakes in the apple tree, the world is the perfect place.
I hereby sign the waiver (what a release!) and forward it to every
neighbor: I accept responsibility for anything that may happen to me or my
children on the great, rocky, unmarked minefield of life. Can we be friends,
now, and trust one another? For better they wreck themselves in a trusting
world than live safely in an armored one.
The earth is an anonymous and randomly violent work of art, created
recklessly, and blind by design to its own blisters and mudslides—“acts of
God,” as even the secular lawyers and insurers still call them. But ultimately there
is no assurance and there is no settlement. We ramble here at our own risk. And
when we say we love the earth, what we must mean is that we accept that risk, on
“good faith” (another legal phrase carried over like a honeyed antique), and
treasure it, and trust it to have lessons (some soft, some hard) for us.