From the Diary of Emile Belasco (5)

I have been asked on more than one occasion whether or not I have a belief in God. 

My normal reply is that I am not some sort of Martian. I was raised in a religion like many children are. I still, on occasion, find myself defaulting to the precepts, and attitudes, and aesthetic choices of that religion if I am not careful.

Yes, I do believe in God. In fact, I think I tend to be a spiritual person in many ways. Ways that have nothing to do with my chosen calling. Ways that are not "professional" in basis. For instance, I am often prone to what I call "seeing the hand of the artist at work." In unguarded moments, I catch myself looking at the colors of the trees in fall. I will see the light reflecting off the water on a sunny day. I will see the snow caught in the pink street light and hear that silence in the air and I'll have that visceral feeling of designed beauty.

In other ways, I can see the hand of God in the work of those who attempt to touch his presence. There is a particular performance I have of Janis Joplin singing "Take Another Little Piece of my Heart" where you can almost see her shaking with, or being shaken BY, the hand of the divine.

But, in my experience, it is WRONG to ascribe any sort of motive to the divine. I believe that the Jews have the right of it. The mind of God is unknowable.

This is why the tendency of men and women to dragoon the power of the divine into their narrow, self-serving, power hungry agendas drive me to near apoplexy.

I have seen things that have qualified as miracles. And they tend to be subtle. Childbirth is a miracle, no matter how commonplace it might be, and yet, if I had one wish, I would wish that God would stop being subtle. Not in a "cleanse the earth with fire" kind of way, but in a way that might actually get people thinking again.

Say, lift up a televangelist in a column of white light on national television, strike him dead with lightning on the spot and have scorpions pour out of all of his orifices as a voice, which will brook no argument intones from on high, "STOP TAKING RELIGIOUS ADVICE FROM DICKHEADS!"