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Category:
Author: Matt Cronin
Published: May 2006
Do you know that I once spoke with God? I know, I know, you think that I'm just another crazy old man in this nursing home who forgot to take his meds. We'll see what you think when I finish my tale. I was just a little older than you, a freshman at the University of Denver studying to be a doctor-I had this silly notion of trying to heal the world one person at a time. Heal them of what? Well, back then we had all sorts of trouble, diseases, terrorism and the like. I guess the world must seem like a bright and shining place to you, but in my day it was a lot darker. I was only sixteen when they started the subway bombings and just one month into college when they tried to run another plane into the White House. The country was in an uproar and the world was doing even worse. Oil was running out and nobody had even contemplated viable cold fusion yet, let alone figured out the equations for the containment field. Wars were all over the headlines: China invading Taiwan, North Korea overrunning South Korea, Iran attacking Israel. Don't even get me started on Africa and South America, I was the person that showed the UN how to make those states viable and even I don't completely believe they aren't still a mess. What's that? No, I wasn't joking. I was the one that mapped out the optimal balance of power and division of labor that helped bring those yokels into our century. I was the one that solved all those other problems too. The Golden Age you're so blase about was my doing and, if you would stop interrupting for a moment, maybe I could tell you how.
It began as a voice, softly yet insistently calling my name while I was studying biochemistry in my dorm room. At first I checked outside my door, slowly opening it to make sure I wasn't going to be a victim of the old "bucket of water against the door" prank upperclassmen loved to play on freshman. No one was there. I went back to my studies and heard it again, this time a little louder. At this point, I was a little spooked and decided to check under the beds and in the closet in case my roommate was playing a trick on me. No one was there. So, I did what any sane person would do. I tried to ignore it. But the voice wouldn't leave. It would wake me up in the night, startle me in the library, and even boom out to me while I showered.
Finally, after three weeks I gave up and answered quietly whispered 'yes?' to, at that point, what I thought was just a voice in my head. For a moment there was silence. Then, while I was just sitting in my dorm room thinking about God knows what, out of nowhere, God shows up. You ask what it was like, speaking with the Lord. Well, it's a lot like when you pray, except this time your eyes are closed because of the blinding light, your hands are clenched together because you're too scared to move, and when you speak to Him, well, He answers immediately.
Anyway, the Lord says to me that I have a heart "like his servant David," and that, if I so chose, I would be given a "mighty gift"-unlimited wisdom, the ability to understand and solve any problem-that I would use to give light to the world. Now, when the Almighty ruler of the universe pops into your plane of existence and offers you a job, well, I can't think of a man who would turn that down. So, after spending what seemed like eternity trying to mumble a reply, I accepted his offer.
Then something strange happened. It seemed that the Lord paused, with even the blinding light seeming to dim for a moment. Now, I know my Scripture, and one of the first things it says is that God knows all and sees all, so a Deity choosing his words seemed awfully strange to me even then. Who knows, maybe it was for dramatic effect. When He boomed again, He let me know that He had given this wisdom to another man exactly three thousand years earlier (He has a thing for "threes")-King Solomon. Yet, instead of using the Lord's gift for the good of Israel, Solomon squandered it on the accumulation of wealth and fame. To make sure this would never happen again, the Lord told me that such a mighty gift would have a price, to make sure that I would only use it when I thought necessary. First, I could never use the gift for fame or fortune; it would be hard wired into me so that I wouldn't even have the option. Second, any knowledge that I would impart would then be lost to me as if I never had it. These two caveats made it so I couldn't use my knowledge for anything beyond mundane tasks, forcing me to tell others how to fix something without getting any direct gain myself. After that, He was just gone. No lights, no ascension into Heaven, just me alone in my dorm room.
What did I do next? Well, the first thing I did was call my mother and tell her what happened. No. No she didn't believe me. She was afraid for me-but who wouldn't when their only son calls up and says the Almighty dropped by and gave him infinite wisdom? She had me come home for a few weeks to rest and, when I wouldn't back down, she took me to a shrink. Think of that, a man with all the knowledge in the universe forced to talk about his "feelings" with some old men. It riles me just thinking on it. The first one didn't help, so she took me to another and another one. None of them saw it; none realized that I was marked. That I had changed. I had to prove it to them.
So, while on the way back from therapist number three, I told my mother to stop at the local 7-Eleven and come in with me. When I got inside, I grabbed the nearest lotto ticket, a bunch of napkins, and one of those pens they leave out to sign receipts, and sat down at a booth across from my mother. As soon as my ass hit the chair I started scribbling, down equations-formulas the likes of which the most advanced mathematician has yet to even dream of. My mother watched me-she started to cry. I still remember her face. Her eyes. She thought I was lost.
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