I ran into God out in the woods this morning while I was working. Last spring I took down some trees to clear space for new garden beds, and I left a big pile of brush and limbs, intending to rent a chipper-shredder. But the going rate for a day with a chipper-shredder seems to be more than I’m inclined to spend, and I have no clear safe space to burn it (though that doesn’t stop several of my neighbors). So I moved the pile branch by branch to a spot behind the shed where it would be out of the way. Birds and rabbits nested in it last year; if anybody doesn’t like the looks of my brush pile, I’ll just tell them it’s a wildlife habitat.

Anyway, God happened to be out in the woods this morning. The woods were quiet, as they usually are on Sunday morning; only the birds getting spring fever and a dog barking disturbed the stillness. Even so, I didn’t hear her approach — that’s one of the disquieting things about God, the sudden appearances and disappearances. I just looked up and there she was, sitting on a rock, watching a squirrel.

I should note that I’m not making some sort of political or theological statement by claiming God as a woman. It’s just how God appeared today, and I need some sort of pronoun — you can’t refer to God as “it.” Once in a while she shows up as a man, but usually as a woman.

I asked her about this once. “Weren’t you a man last time?” I said.

“I am large,” she said, “I contain multitudes.”

“You’re quoting Whitman?”

She shrugged. “He’s a better writer than I am.”

I don’t care what sex she decides to inhabit when she takes human form; I’m only concerned by her tendency to take the specific form of women I find extremely attractive. She laughed when I told her this. “It’s the only way I’m sure you’ll pay attention to me,” she said.

“So you’re saying it’s ok that I’m shallow and lustful?”

“No, I’m saying I know what I have to work with. Besides, you know you have a problem with male authority figures. When I’m a man you just want to argue with me. It’s annoying.”

I shrugged. It was true. But it didn’t make it any less disturbing to me that God had fabulous breasts.

Today she didn’t seem inclined to talk, and I always hesitate to initiate the conversation. Sometimes I get the feeling she wants to be alone. And, of course, there’s always the danger she won’t actually be God. There are few things more embarrassing than talking to a total stranger as if he’s God only to find out that he just happens to be taking a shortcut through the woods. So I continued working.

Eventually, though, the silence grew awkward.

“Beautiful day,” I said.

“Thanks,” she said, not taking her eyes off the squirrel. I was striving for a conversational tone, much as you’d use to pass the time with a stranger while waiting for an elevator, but of course when you’re talking with God, it’s all about her.

Finally the squirrel scampered off through the canopy, and she turned her attention to me. “So what brings you outside, besides the weather?” she said. “Out in the woods looking for inner peace again?”

“No, I’m clearing space for a garden.” I wanted to ask, don’t you know these things? Aren’t you supposed to be omniscient? but she always asks me questions to which you’d expect God to know the answer. At first I thought she was toying with me, but I’ve come to think she’s just trying to be polite.

“Ah,” she said, nodding. “Agriculture.”

“Now you’re telling me you don’t like agriculture?”

“No, no. It’s fascinating, really. The endless varieties of tomato, the bickering over goat cheese. Kobe beef. It never ceases to amaze me the lengths to which humans will go to satisfy basic needs in ever more ridiculous ways.”

“You didn’t anticipate that when you created us?”

“Oh, I saw the general outlines. Give a species free will and consciousness and curiosity and a competitive nature and you’re off to the races. They’ll do all kinds of crazy things. But you never know just what.”

“What else surprises you?”

“TV game shows. Never understood those. Sex toys. Ice hockey. Artificial intelligence — now there’s something I don’t get at all.”

“Humans want to create something like themselves.”

“That’s what sex is for. I gave you sex and you’re building robots?”

“Good point.”

“Of course it’s a good point. I’m God.”

“I’m sorry, I thought we were supposed to worship you.”

She snorted. “I hate that stuff. Enough with the flattery. Do you really think I’m that insecure that I need the constant praise of six billion short-lived primates? That I created you because I was desperate for attention?”

“All right, so why did you create us?”

She sat back on the rock. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“That’s not much of an answer,” I said, a bit sourly.

“Why do you write?” she said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe because there’s something inside me that needs to get out.”

“Well? There’s you’re answer.”

“So you’re saying we’re just characters in your novel?”

“Sure? Why not?”

“What about free will?”

“Don’t your characters take on a life of their own? Don’t you feel when you’re writing that they’re real and that you’re only a conduit for them?”

“But what about cognito ergo sum and existence preceding essence?”

“Hogwash.”

“I’m not buying it.”

She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

She watched as I snapped a large branch in half and tossed the two pieces onto the new pile.

“So why did you decide to have a child, then?” she asked.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

She laughed. It’s always flattering when God laughs at your jokes.

“Seriously,” she said.

“Because there were things I wanted to learn, and I knew that was the only way to learn them.”

“Then there’s your answer. That’s why I created you.”

“So we really are your children, then?”

She laughed again, threw back her head and laughed. I hate it when God laughs; I never know whether she’s laughing at me or at some private joke she couldn’t possibly explain.

“You’re funny,” she said. “You take everything I say so literally. Always looking for the ultimate answer. Still the physicist? Ever seeking that Grand Unified Theory that will explain the entire universe in one fell swoop?”

“What’s wrong with that?” I said, sounding, I’m afraid, a little petulant.

“Maybe there is no ultimate answer. Maybe there are only metaphors. Metaphors and models. Why would you want to know the ultimate answer, anyway? If there were no more mystery, what would be the point of living?”

“Single barrel bourbon. Ethiopian coffee.”

“You couldn’t live on that and you know it. If you ever found all the answers you’d be miserable.”

“So the meaning of life is the search for the meaning of life?”

“It’s turtles all the way down,” she said, smiling. “Oh, and David?”

“Yes?”

“I’m God and I see everything, but if you’re going to check out my breasts you could at least try to be discreet. It’s rude.”

“Sorry, Lord.”

She vanished.

I finished moving the brush pile and went inside to watch some college basketball on TV. Next time I have got to remember to ask her what happens when we die, and also who’s going to win the NCAA tournament. Although come to think of it, she probably wouldn’t give me a straight answer about that, either.

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