I was on my third cup of coffee of the morning when the doorbell rang. I put down the book I was reading and with cup in hand walked to the front door and opened it. Much to my surprise there was no one there; only a small box sitting on the sidewalk about five feet from the door. It was a perfect box in its own way; its cardboardness was not in doubt. Because my life was no longer one of action or of accomplishment, I had no qualms about opening the box without the aid of a stethoscope or an x-ray machine. All heck could break loose for all I cared. For you see, I was now and had been for the last six months, a RTPE (Retired Theological Private Eye) and what good is life if you’ve spent most of it as a highly trained TPE and then find yourself forcibly put out to pasture by some metaphysical pencil pushers at THI (Third Heaven Intercelestial) HQ. Sure, I had single-handedly blown up what many considered (myself included) to be the Taj Mahal of the Celestial Realms, the Third Heaven Cafeteria, but it was all in the name of doing it for the Greater Good. Cassy Castenada and the Raspberry Tarters had to be stopped. Their imminent takeover of the Third Heaven Cafeteria would mean the end of fine other world dining and without good food, what’s the point of it all?
I drained what was left of the coffee, put down the cup and strolled out into the mid-morning sun. The air was fresh and mostly clean. A cow pasture was not too far distant and the odor of cow dung mixing in with the smell of yesterday’s cut grass found their way into my less than eager nostrils. But I was used to the ambivalent aroma and was not deterred from picking up the box and looking into its contents. With nothing but my bare hands, I ripped it opened and out fell a single piece of paper. I leaned over (gingerly I might add; the parachute jump from the exploding Third Heaven Cafeteria had left scars both outward and inward) and retrieved the wayward wood product. I then opened the folded page and saw the following question:
What did God know and when did He know it?
A darn good question and worthy of a fully functioning TPE; did I say TPE? Yes, I had left off the R. All of a sudden I was no longer retired. Of course, I would be working without portfolio. They had taken away my Wullet and my celestial cell phone and my THI ID/Credit Card and for a while they had taken away my pride. But the Pond of Fire training was still there and so was the burning desire to solve every mystery. And this was a big one. I couldn’t let it pass.
***
I decided to take a walk. There was a path behind the house that led into the woods and continued on for a mile or so. It usually took about thirty minutes to go to the end and back but today it took much longer because in a sense I wasn’t really walking. It was more like I was just meandering as thoughts from the past came crowding in; I remembered the day I was interviewed by the Rocky Mountain Pond of Fire TPE Academy recruiter. He had traveled to the Eastern Seaboard to interview applicants and it was his job to talk them out of applying. After about two hours of firing questions at me, he knew he was a failure. I was born to investigate. But I wanted to be a very special investigator, one who investigated matters celestial. So I signed all the papers, received my temporary Wullet ID/Credit Card Second Class and jumped on the next Greyhound bus to Colorado. Forty-eight hours later a Pond of Fire Academy limo picked me up at bus station and before I knew it I was being issued Academy approved non-uniforms. I was told to report to Room 626 where I washed up, put on my new duds and reported to the first TPE Seminar: ‘Don’t Let the Devil Go Down to Georgia’.
Other seminars followed (such as ‘Murder in Galaxy AB109’, ‘Spirit, Spirits and More Spirits’, ‘How to Put a Temporary Hold on an Immortal Being’; also called ‘Jacob’s Ladder 101’, ‘A Poker Face for Everyday Celestial Private Eyeing’, and 'Don't Ever Blow Up the Third Heaven Cafeteria'. I must have fell asleep during the last one.
They were all exhilarating and the time flew by. Before I knew it I was marching in the Pond of Fire Academy Graduation. Of course, there was no audience for the graduation because such things must be kept secret. But now that I’m retired, I’m free to say what I want. Nobody would believe me anyway.
I got back to the house, went in and sat down in the old chair. ‘What did God know and when did He know it?’. It was a question that demanded an answer. To begin to do so, I first needed to dissect the question. What was the ‘what’ referring to? The ‘when’ was irrelevant until I found the ‘what’. Now most people assume God knows everything, i.e., he’s omniscient. If he doesn’t know everything, then he’s not really God. But there’s a difference between having the ability to do something and actually choosing to do it. And that should be our first consideration. What does God choose to know? If he has no choice in what he does or is, then he’s not really a free being. That makes his creating us nothing more the work of a super-powered robot. Which leads to yet another tantalizing question: who created the super-powered robot?
My answer would be that no one did because God is not a super-powered robot. He is an entity who has found a way to separate himself from his creation and in so doing has created a certain amount of distance between himself and his creatures. Not an impossible distance but a vague and shadowy one; this is a deduction but every good TPE is nothing if not a deductive thinker.
***
The morning had turned to noon and my stomach was growling in protest. I decided to walk to Goodsite Xroads which was about a half-mile from my abode. There was a fairly decent restaurant there by the name of Xroads Kafé. It was a week day and the place was hopping. I was lucky enough to find an empty stool at the counter where I wedged in between Lucy Plantain and Desi Rutebager. I knew Lucy from Shumptuous Dairy, where I worked part time. She was a bookkeeper/chocolate milk taster. Desi was a truck driver and night club singer. Lucy said hello:
“The turnip greens are a mite tasty.”
I never, ever turned down turnip greens. So I ordered them along with fried green tomatoes, rice and black eye peas. And sweet tea, of course.
For some reason, Desi was straining his neck trying to look around me. I suddenly realized why and he and I changed places.
THE END
