There it was: why I was an atheist. I have no idea what they will do with it. The white plain envelope had no postage nor writing on it. Inside was just the simple reason to why I no longer believed in a stupid “God.” A letter written on a piece of paper and sealed in the envelope. The bright sky felt like a day of liberation as my points were made clear in this letter. The grey faint sidewalk had a mailbox bolted to the city street. The blue handle was missing a good deal of paint. As the almost rusted old metal creaked as it open the gaping hole to all the mail inside. The letter to God was put on top. The post office would probably just throw it away…
“Dear God,
I wrote this letter to get my thoughts on paper. If I can be honest, I have a few questions. My life is not where I thought it would be right now. But my complaints are not with that. I was once told of your existence and as a kid, an all-powerful being that loves me seemed cool. But where are you now? I “know” you where there when the world was “flooded” and that you “created” the world in seven days. But where are you now? The world is screwed up. I keep asking myself, what kind of God would let this happen? What kind of all-powerful “loving being would allow this kind of suffering. Life seems to be a person stuck in a bad wind no matter how long he stand and fight we will eventually blow away and die. My buddy Andy died at the age of thirty-two. Out of the blue he gets cancer and is given three months to live. Why? Was that “his time” to “go” and where is he “going”? I believe he is going to stay in the hole they dug for him. There is no heaven because there is no You. His wife nearly lost it. The news of his illness hit like an earthquake. But hey it was “your plan” that her husband contracts Cancer two weeks before their first child was to be born. The perfect storm, how can she be happy with the birth of her daughter when her husband is dying. Sure at least Andy got to see his daughter before the grave caught up to him. Come on? Kick a man while he down. He only got to have a few months with his daughter. That girl will forever be burned by the fire of growing up fatherless. Andy loved You and talked about You all the time. He even accepted Your Son as his Lord and Savior. Not me.
All this pain is unnecessary. Suffering is stupid. If you are going to take someone’s life can’t you just do it quietly you murderous a**hole. Why must they suffer before you take them? Watching as my best friend lay there in a hospital bed as white as a ghost and lacking the strength to breathe. Why? He was young! He had his whole life figured out! Why must evil people continue to live will Andy is dead? People who break those precious “rules” you have. Andy followed those rules and look where it got him, six feet under. So you create us as a bad game of Sims just to watch us all die slow painful deaths and laugh at us. I thought You were supposed to be our Father? All I see is the violence. War is common and people die needlessly every day. It is Your fault! Your fault!
Yours Truly,
Jonathan Lewis
Done. That was the echo the metal box made as I slammed the mail box shut. Writing that letter allowed me to give rid of the image of a “God” I know does not exist. So that sound completes my faith. What? A single drop of rain fell on my head. The sun still shone overhead, how could it be raining? The city streets were full of noise and people but today they felt quiet. The Subway was even silent. No one talked, they just looked out the window. Back on the street I walked by a Church. A building that costs so much money, built for nothing. They could have given that money to the homeless. A bright warm day, the perfect day to see Emma (Andy’s widower) and her baby girl. The warmth of the day surged through as I hopped up the stairs with a childlike joy. “Jon” I turned but no one was there. Just a faint little cry in the middle of the bitter silence. Then the noises of the streets hit me like a falling piano. The widower comes with her stroller a day built for the park.
“Jon,” There is it again. Scratching my head, it was probably nothing, “I was not in the wind, the earthquake, the storm nor the fire. I was in the silence, and in the silence I suffered with you…” I heard that, and the world went silent again.