LETTERS FROM GOD

The letters came to me while I was news editor at the Buenos Aires Herald in the seventies and eighties. There were several over the years, neatly typed on a manual machine.

The first ones were addressed to the editor in chief. He would normally have tossed them into the waste basket—or simply allowed them to get lost in the avalanche of paper that he lived with and that littered every available surface in his cramped office. But since it was one of my duties to sort through each day’s mail, decide which letters to the editor would get into our readers’ section called “Your View”, and then edit them to fit the space allotted, the boss thought that it would be funny to send this particular crank message along to me noting that I should handle it, perhaps, since the guy was “from my neck of the woods.”

Each letter began with the same salutation: As Almighty GOD, I greet you. And it seems that Maple Heights, Ohio—my home state—was the new Nazareth. That’s where God’s son, Eugene Chaney, made his home. The letters came to Buenos Aires “FROM THE DESK OF EUGENE CHANEY”. God explained, more or less, that he was everywhere but that one of the trade-offs for omnipresence was the impossibility of physically writing the letters Himself—although I could only presume that he hadn’t lost his ability to sear letters into stone tablets, should the occasion arise.

There was always something divinely whiny in God’s letters. He had a bone to pick with the press. “It is almost unbelievable,” he wrote once, “that My Holy SPIRIT has been in My Son’s body for decades now. Unbelievable because of the eerie pall of silence which hovers over the newspaper industry. Editors and publishers suppress the news that I Am Actually Alive in My Son. Thus, humanity remains ignorant of My Existence.”

Certain of today’s so-called “evangelicals” might be interested (appalled) to learn that Almighty God was not the white supremacist deity that many of them seem to worship today. He was, it seems, indeed a white God, or at least he had chosen to materialize in the form of his white Buckeye son, Eugene. But he had a soft spot for minorities. “Just as the 12 tribes of Israel were My chosen people in Biblical times,” he wrote, “Blacks have replaced them in modern times.” They should know, he said, that “prayers of anguish that rise from humble dwellings and store-front churches do not fall on deaf ears.” And then he added, “Heaven is not only for Caucasians, but for Blacks and other denominations as well.”

He wanted to assure editors like myself, posted in what he considered far-flung corners of the earth, that “the Watchful Eyes of My Greater Spirit, which hovers over the universe” were emanating love to “all who are destitute and lowly in spirit throughout the world. Africa, India, South America, all underdeveloped nations are under My Watchful Gaze.”  

He confirmed that he formed part of a trinity—Father, Eugene and Holy Ghost. “Justice is not dead,” he said. There would be “Judgment for ALL humanity someday.” Those responsible for “the suffering of children and the aged” would have to answer for it when they met their Maker. “It is pathetic,” he continued, “the bloated bellies of starving children who cannot comprehend why their parents cannot feed them. Even in this affluent country, many children go to bed hungry.” Despite having an ostensibly flawed omniscience with regard to the level of development of some South American nations—at the time, Argentina, for instance, had one of the highest literacy rates on the planet, and had long served as ‘the bread-basket of Europe’ as well as being the sixth-ranked trading nation in the world for the entire first half of the 20^th century—clearly, God was nobody’s fool. He indeed appeared to see a lot, including the pockets of extreme poverty in the otherwise wealthy nation of Eugene’s birth.

But his empathy was not for one class alone. “I love the poor in humble Churches,” he wrote, “not just the congregations of Posh Cathedrals. I Am for the frail, weary and broken-hearted—all who suffer throughout the world. But let it not be said that I overlook the affluent. I Love All of humanity who do not let Worship die, like the petals of a faded, Crushed Rose.”

Eugene, God explained, was not a carpenter, like The One to whom he alleged to be Successor, but a machinist in a metals shop. Eugene put in a 40-hour week there and then devoted the rest of his time to the work of his father’s “non-profit organization”. From what God said, most of what they did was write letters, “which we send first class using our own money.” It wasn’t always easy. “My Son has a paltry three thousand dollars in His bank account,” he explained. But God, evidently, provided when Eugene couldn’t.

Their mailing campaign was directed not only toward editors and publishers, but also toward politicians. He once sent me some excerpts from letters Eugene had sent to US senators. In them he voiced his opposition “to the horrendous arms escalation and the deployment of nuclear devices.” All I could think on reading this was that if God Almighty was delusional, at least his heart was in the right place and in keeping with his son’s inherited legacy as the Prince of Peace. This was surely more than I could say for the parade of multi-millionaire evangelists who had wended their self-righteous way through the halls of the White House and Congress over the years giving their blessing to every war that my country had either started or gladly participated in for decades.

“Billions upon billions of dollars for defense, but no dollars for the underprivileged—this is the sad state of affairs in both the United States and Russia,” God posited. “Both super-powers are hogs for defense capital, as prestige is the main source of power between the two nations.”

God admonished the lawmakers that he wrote to, saying, “I would remind you, Senator, that you and your colleagues are servants to the people who put you in office. You are, therefore, obligated to them as to how you spend their tax monies, and to spend them wisely and justly.”

And then the clincher, which, I feel, had the subconscious sting of a Gypsy curse, even for those who tried to laugh it off as the ravings of a madman: “You and your Colleagues are obliged to abide by My Laws as well as Man’s. The destiny of countless starving people around the world is in your hands and those of your Colleagues. In this life as in the life to come, the just and the unjust must be counted. No one can escape the cog wheels of destiny as they turn and grind out Justice.”

Sometimes he apologized for such outbursts, saying, for example, that his heart was “heavy-laden because this Letter must end on a sour note.” His closings were often sad and less than optimistic, like the one in which he said, “With tears in My Eyes and a Prayer on My Lips for a brighter future, as your CREATOR, My Holy Spirit has Dictated this Letter to you through My Son, who wrote My Very Words. My Holy Name is void of form, so it is never written on paper. My Son will sign this Letter, as He will also Pray for a future that is void of tears.”

It was signed,

“Prayerfully Yours,

Eugene Chaney”

I received a final missive in the latter part of 1982, following the Falklands War. After the sadness and confusion of that conflict, I could have used an encouraging word from somebody. But if I expected to receive it from God and The Desk of Eugene Chaney, I was out of luck.

It began, like all the others:

“As Almighty God, I greet you.”

But this one had a different tone. It was mildly defeatist and resigned. Its mood could best be described as “weary”.

“The days are dwindling for My Son who looks forward to early retirement,” God said. “Eugene will be sixty-two on the twelfth of November, nineteen hundred eighty-two.” Eugene had been a machinist for forty years by then. “On Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, My Son and I spend Our spare time mailing Letters and Books to newspapers. We have not had a vacation in twenty years,” he went on. “The grind has been devastating. My Son has been hospitalized several times for nervous fatigue.”

His son’s life savings amounted to a few measly thousands of dollars. And, despite having put in four decades working in a metals shop, Eugene had never managed to own real estate, or even a car.

They were looking forward to their retirement, he indicated. But he lamented that although they would have time on their hands, they would no longer have the financial resources to maintain their campaign to spread The Good News and the Direct Word of God far and wide. This was a campaign that they had been nurturing, he said, since 1960. “To say that Editors and Publishers have been unkind to Us by not publishing Our Works in their respective periodicals is an understatement,” he complained. However, he said, “My Son and I will always be alive, dispensing Justice, in this dimension of Time and Light, even though newspapers continue to see fit to suppress The Word.”

That was the last that I ever heard from Almighty God and Eugene. They cross my mind from time to time. I wonder what happened to them. I figure that Eugene, mortal as he was, very likely passed on, since he would be nearly a hundred years old if he were alive today. But at the risk of giving an unintentional nod to Nietzsche, I can’t help asking myself if, perhaps, father and son died together, or were truly one to begin with. Or did Eugene and his father simply reach the conclusion that the salvation of the human race was a lost cause and decide to take a permanent vacation from Earth?