As she took up the mike, Cassie worried that she might be about to make a fool of herself. It was one thing to lecture on food chains and ecological niches before a class of Tarrytown sophomores and quite another to critique the cosmos before a mob of hardened and depressed merchant sailors. "In all of Scripture," she began, "it is perhaps the ordeal of Job that best allows me to articulate how rationalists such as myself feel about our cargo." Swallowing a frigid mouthful of air, she glanced down at the wharf....

"Job, you may recall, demanded to know the reason for his terrible losses — possessions, family, health — whereupon the Whirlwind appeared and explained that justice for one mere individual was not the point." She leaned the Bible's spine against the rail and opened it near the middle. "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations? God asks, rhetorically. What supports its pillars at their bases? Who pent up the sea behind closed doors when it leapt tumultuous out of the womb?" She extended her right mitten, indicating the frozen hippopotamus. "Now think of Behemoth," she said, still quoting God. "What strength he has in his loins, what power in his stomach muscles. His tail is as stiff as a cedar, the sinews of his thighs are tightly knit. His vertebrae are bronze tubing, his bones as hard as hammered iron...." Pivoting ninety degrees, Cassie spoke to the Corpus Dei. "What can I say, Sir? I'm a rationalist. I don't believe the splendor of hippos is any sort of answer to the suffering of humans. Where do I even begin? The Lisbon earthquake? The London plague? Malignant melanoma?" She sighed with a mixture of resignation and exasperation. "And yet, throughout it all, You still remained You, didn't You? You, Creator: a function You performed astonishingly well, laying those foundations and anchoring those supporting pillars. You were not a very good man, God, but You were a very good wizard, and for that I, even I, give You my gratitude."

James Morrow, Towing Jehovah
Copyright © 1994 by James Morrow. All rights reserved.

Posted 22 March 1998

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