Roomates
Roommates
God was having yet another bout of insomnia so in the middle of the night he threw on his sweat pants and a big, comfy sweater emblazoned with a ‘Kiss the Cook’ slogan, and took a long walk with his dog, Frank.
He wasn’t entirely surprised to find that he ended up at his office, a place where he spent countless hours. “I’m like a homing pigeon,” he thought ruefully. “I always end up back here.” He opened the utilitarian wood door and walked down the hall to his office. His office was surprisingly small for those that came to see him, with a plain wooden desk, two chairs and six gray filing cabinets lined up against one wall. People seemed to expect to see gold fixtures, a harp leaning against a corner and perhaps a couple of angels, one at his left hand, and one at his right. But God was a simple fellow and not much into fancy things. The walls were bare except for a single painting, one his son did when he had settled in after his arrival. Jesus had found that he had quite the talent for art so he painted a still life of three apples in a bowl, resting on a simple wooden table.
God and Frank went into his office and Frank settled on the floor and was soon sleeping peacefully. God thought he might do some paperwork so went to a filing cabinet and randomly pulled out a file folder bursting with paper. Sometimes, God didn’t have any plans for the next step in his path, he just trusted, so he knew that whatever file he pulled out of the drawer was the file he needed to read. He had just settled in to read about the nature of paradox when he heard someone walking down the hall. He glanced at the time and saw that it was 5:30 a.m. which was a little early for anyone but him to be coming to the office. He got up from his chair and went to open the door to peek out to see who might be coming down the hall at such an early hour. When he saw who it was, his heart sank.
Al Capone strode down the hall as if he owned the place. He was dressed in a black pinstriped suit, a crisp white shirt and a snap brim white fedora. God wished he could look as good in a hat as Al did, but he just wasn’t a hat guy. He’d tried fedoras, bowler hats, baseball hats and even a coonskin cap once, (fake fur, of course) but even though he never looked good in them, he could appreciate that some men could carry a hat and make it look good.
Capone had a fat cigar stuck in one side of his mouth as he walked down the hall. God knew that Capone wanted to see him so he opened the door and stepped into the hall. “Al,” he cried, “You’re up and out of the house early! I take it you wanted to see me?”
Capone pushed past God and stepped into the office. “You’re right, I did,” he said brusquely. “I’m not waiting in any line to see you so I figured I’d be here first today. I’ve got the same problem I’ve had for years and I’ve come to you to get it solved. “ He looked at God pointedly. “That’s what you do, right?” he asked. “Solve problems?” Without being invited, he sat down in a chair in front of God’s desk and looked around the office. “Why don’t you let me hook you up with some good furniture? I don’t know why you work in this dump when you could have the best of everything.” He paused to pull a ruby encrusted lighter out of his pocket. He went to light his cigar and God put a hand on his shoulder to get his attention. Capone looked up at him, lighter poised in mid-air and God pointed to a ‘no smoking’ magnet clinging to one of the filing cabinets. Capone sighed and put his lighter back into his pocket.
God sat behind his desk and said, “So what’s new, Al? What’s the problem you need help solving?”
“You know what it is, it ain’t like I’ve never been here before to complain about it.” Capone said darkly. “You’re supposed to solve problems and yet I’ve been stuck in the same damn mess for years.”
“I take it you’re still experiencing some challenges with your room mate?” God asked innocently.
“Yeah, you got that right,” Capone said. “This Alexander ‘the great’ guy is still rubbing me the wrong way. I don’t see why I have to have a room mate in the first place, especially this guy.”
“Like I’ve said to you before, Al, I’ve put the two of you together so that you can figure out how to decrease the size of your own egos. Both of you have huge egos and if I had of given you your own space to live in, it would have been easier to keep that ego intact. This way, two huge egos living in the same space is a real challenge. What’s been going on lately?” God asked.
“Same crap, different year,” Capone answered. He jammed the unlit cigar back into his mouth and said, “Explain this ego stuff to me again because I just don’t get it. I was good at what I did when I was alive – if I didn’t have an ego to help me out, how would I have been the biggest and best gangster in Chicago?”
“You were the best gangster in Chicago,” God agreed. “How do you think you got to be the best gangster, Al?”
Al paused for a moment to think, sucking on his cigar. “I saw what I wanted and I took it,” he said.
“Did you care at all about the impact that had on other people?” God asked, truly curious as to how Al would answer.
Al looked at God derisively and said, “If those stupid saps couldn’t stand up for themselves, why was that my problem?” They just sat there and let me take everything from them. It’s their own damn fault, not mine.”
God sighed and said, “That’s part of the problem with the ego, Al. It doesn’t care at all about the impact it has on other people. All it cares about is that it is getting constantly fed. It has a voracious appetite, it’s always starving.” All of a sudden, there was loud noise in the hallway and God got up to check and see what it was. He went to the door and looked out and here was Alexander the Great, walking quickly down the hall.
“Is Al in there with you?” Alex demanded. He didn’t give God a chance to answer, he swept past him, the scent of expensive cologne following him as he thrust through the door. He stood in God’s office, resplendent in an Armani suit, and pointed at Al. “What are you doing here, al?” he shouted. “You can’t be here to complain about me behind my back!”
“Who in the hell do you think you are to come in here and yell at me?” Al shouted back to him.
“I am Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia and Conqueror of the Persian Empire” Alex responded smugly. “I can do what I want, where I want and how I want. I don’t ask for permission from anyone.”
“Fellows, fellows, let’s calm down and talk this over,” God said firmly. He knew he had to find a way to wrestle the egos of these two men to the ground. He sat at his desk and pointed to the other chair and said, “Alex, please sit down and let’s talk this through.”
Alex moved the chair a few inches before he sat down, increasing the distance between him and Al. God sighed and said, “What do you two think should happen with all this? You have to start working on this ego thing so the two of you can live together. If I let you live on your own, you’re going to start throwing your ego around and it’ll never get challenged. Let’s brainstorm and see what we can come up with to solve this issue.” He waited and looked at them but both of them slouched in their chairs and glared at each other.
God sighed and went over to his row of filing cabinets. He opened a drawer and flipped through his files until he found one entitled ‘ego’ and pulled it out of the drawer. “Okay, guys,” he said, “let’s talk about ego again. Do either one of you remember some of the symptoms of having a big ego?”
“No”, they both mumbled.
“Not a problem,” God said cheerfully, “we’ll go through these handouts again.” He handed a sheet of paper to each man and said, “Alex, do you want to read the first statement?”
Alex sighed loudly and said, “I’ve got better things to do with my time than read this stuff but I can’t stand living with Al so I’ll try to learn this again. He looked down at the sheet of paper in his hand and read, “He who lives only for himself is truly dead to others. Publius Syrus.” He looked up at God and said, “I don’t get it. I was only 33 when I died and I have to admit, I mostly lived for myself but I wasn’t dead to others. People are still talking to me hundreds of years after I died.”
God looked at him and smiled, “That is true, Alex but maybe what that quote is trying to tell us is that the world went on, even after you were dead. You didn’t have any relationships in your life that weren’t chaotic and conflictual. You married several times, and you did have two sons but one was only four when you died and the other wasn’t born until two months after you were dead. And they were both murdered before they reached adulthood because of who their father was.”
Al laughed and said, “I had a son and at least lived to a ripe old age.”
“Actually, Al,” God said, gently. “It’s true you had a son but he changed his name when he was an adult because he didn’t want to be associated with your activities as a gangster anymore. So even though you had a son, he didn’t want to acknowledge that he was your son.”
Al looked down sadly and said, “Yeah, you’re right, I thought that having a son was a great thing for me but I didn’t take into consideration what impact my lifestyle might have on my boy. And there was something even worse than that. I got syphilis from some whore when I was a teenager and never got it treated. My son was born with it and when he was ten he had to have an operation on his brain. I’ve never been so scared in my life! Maybe if I had thought of somebody else instead of myself, my boy wouldn’t have had to grow up partially deaf because he was affected by my syphilis.”
“That’s an important part of diminishing the ego,” God said. “recognizing that the people and things in the world don’t exist purely for your pleasure and use. Our choices have an impact on people we love, on people that matter to us. Our ego can hurt the ones we love the most.”
“Al,” God said, “would you like to read the next statement?”
Al peered at the page and read slowly, “Be as clear as possible as to what your intention is.” He peered over the paper at God. “I don’t get that one at all. What the heck does it mean?”
God smiled patiently. “There was a period in your life that you opened soup kitchens for the poor and needy. What was your intention in doing that?”
Al replied, “I did that because the cops were nosing into my business and I knew I wanted to do something to improve how the public saw me. I wanted them to think I was a good guy, not some gangster bum that everybody hated.” He hesitated and God saw a flash of understanding in his eyes. “Oh,” Al whispered, “I get it now. My intentions weren’t really to help all those people during the depression. My intention was to help myself look good in everybody else’s eyes. But helping all those people by giving them food was still a good thing, right?”
“It was,” God affirmed. “It’s just that it wouldn’t have fed your ego if you had done it with the intention of making yourself look good. If you had of done it anonymously, without anyone ever knowing you were donating all that money, it wouldn’t have fed your ego.”
“Gotcha, God,” Al said, pleased that he was beginning to understand the complexities of his own ego.
“How about you, Alex? Is that one clear to you as well?” God asked.
“Yup, I’m okay with that one. Can I read the next statement?” Alex asked.
“Depends,” God said wryly. “What’s your intention in reading the next statement?”
“To show you that I can read better than Al,” Alex said disdainfully. “Oops, that’s the wrong intention, isn’t it?” he said, chagrined.
“Yes, it is the wrong intention but the fact that you understand that it’s the wrong intention is amazing, Alex!” God said, smiling broadly at the young man sitting in front of him. “Al, how about we read one more statement and we’ll leave it at that for this morning. There’s lots of learning to be done about the ego but let’s take it one step at a time.”
“Okey-dokey, God. I’m good with that,” Al said. “I’m starting to get a clue about this ego stuff. The next statement says, “The ego does not allow you to be who you really are.” He paused to ponder the statement. “You know, that’s true,” he finally said. “I fought battles and killed people and ordered massacres and there were times when I was really afraid and I never showed it because I thought it would make me weak and ineffective as a leader.”
Al piped in and said, “Yeah, me too. I had to do some pretty tough stuff when I was in Chicago. I ordered hits and ripped people off and blackmailed cops and there were times when it was tough. It’s not that I didn’t feel overwhelmed or scared at times, it’s just that I never admitted it.”
God nodded and said, “That’s the irony of the ego. It makes us do things we wouldn’t ordinarily do because we’re so afraid of being judged by other people. It strips us of our authentic self and then what’s left of us? Nothing but an inflated ego – no authentic connections to other people and no one really knows who we are, the beauty, the power, the passion, the soul that is in all of us. The ego prevents the essence of who we are from shining.”
Al and Alex both nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe what you two could do,” God said wisely, “is take some time to think of these things and be gentler with both yourself and each other. A place to start might be to show who you really are. How does that sound?”
Al looked at Alex and said, “I never told you this but I really love to do dishes. I like the feel of the warm water and I like to play in the bubbles. Plus which it gives me time to think about things I need to figure out. I know I’ve been fighting you over the dishes for a long time – would you be okay if I made that my job from now on? Oh,by the way, my friends call me Snorky.”
Alex smiled and nodded. “That would be great, Snorky, ” he said. “I’d appreciate that since I hate doing dishes. I do like doing laundry though. I like having clean sheets and towels and crisp white shirts so I’ll take over that job from now on. Deal? ” He held out his hand and Al reached his hand out and they shook.
Al and Alex stood up and left to go home to do dishes and laundry. “It’s a start,” thought God, and put his file on the ego back in the gray filing cabinet before waking up Frank to go grab a coffee and a slice of banana bread.