Jesus is a very popular shrink, and doesn’t have a life outside that practice, said my drinking buddy, his Father.
During one of our drinking sessions, I asked my companion if there was a chance I could meet his son. I knew Jesus was a bit anti-social, but maybe if I said I wanted to hear the truth about him, not the Bible’s fictionalization of that truth, he might be willing to meet me.
“You wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of meeting him, assuming Hell still exists, which, as you know, it doesn’t,” God replied. “Jesus is engaged in his healing practice almost all the time, and he doesn’t have any sort of life outside that practice.”
“So perhaps I could schedule an appointment with him. I would tell him that I was a friend of yours, of course.”
“Wouldn’t help. He’s booked up years in advance. If you don’t believe me, you can visit his website messiahmentalhygiene.org.”
I now thought about the sort of clients who might be so desperately in need of healing that Jesus would be willing to see them right away. “Okay, but what if I told him that I’m a psychotic leper?” I asked.
“You’d have to join the queue.”
“Then how about if I told him I have a pollen-producing stamen rather than a penis? Might that do the trick?”
“Join the queue again.”
“Maybe I could say that I can’t decide whether to kill myself or kill a bunch other people, adding ‘Please help me, O Divine Shrink!’”
“You’d have to join two queues, one for potential suicides and the other for potential serial killers. By the way, are you sloshed?”
“Not yet, but I’m getting there,” I said. I paused, then came up with a new idea. I would tell Jesus that I suffer from an overwhelming desire to emulate him and nail myself to a cross.
“He’s already had several clients with this disorder. One of them even tried to crucify himself in his office, so Jesus keeps at the ready a special pair of pliers designed for removing nails.”
I still wanted to learn about Jesus’s life from Jesus himself, so I suggested one final, off-the-top of my head possibility:
I would come announced to Jesus’s mental hygiene office and inform him that I was his long-lost brother, the product of a union between Mary and, during one of his rare libidinous moments, her husband Joseph. “My eagerness to see you knows no bounds, bro!” I would exclaim.
“Jesus wouldn’t give a hoot whether or not you were his brother. And if you broke into his office, his assistant Simon the Zealot would beat you up, then call the police and have them haul you off. Or maybe he would call the police, then beat up. It’s hard to tell what comes first with Simon.”
At this point, I decided to give up meeting the son of God and simply be content hanging out with God himself.
Part of a series detailing Lawrence Millman’s experiences with his drinking buddy, God. Soon to be gathered together, assuming a publisher is interested, as a mini-memoir entitled “Drinks With God.”
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