God Repents Charles Angoff God had been contemplating the world for years with increasing despair.

The glories of the firmament pleased Him. The sun and the moon and the stars did their allotted work with a method born of inner calm and with an unbounded joy at proclaiming His Infinite Goodness. And the glories of the earth also gave satisfaction to the Lord. As from time immemorial, He beheld the gentle flowers and the proud trees, finding therein deep solace. But sorrow again enveloped God as He thought of the ways of man. In the midst of all such beauty, man had yet persisted in his transgressions of God s wishes and the still soft please of man s own soul. Made in God s image, and thereby enjoying the Lord s special favor, man returned this mark of Divine Love with cold indifference. To help man out of his evil ways, God had sent on earth His Only Begotten Son, for Him to lead the children of the earth back to the path of righteousness that brings the peace that passeth understanding. Jesus walked the road of anguish and bled on the cross to atone for the errors of mankind. Yet even as He returned to Heaven, man sank back to his ancient ways. And now there was war again on earth, and God was at a loss what to do. Millions of years of patience and two thousand years of charity had led only to a carnage more merciless than ever before. God therefore concluded it would be the highest charity to destroy man from the face of the earth. But He hesitated to do so without consulting those among his angels most fitted to offer advice on so momentous a resolution. He called in Time, and explained to him the step He wished to take and the reasons therefor. He said, Time, you know well the hardness and incorrigibility in the heart of man, for it is in your domain they have taken place. You know how much I have offered. Tell me, Time, of what avail would it be to let it all continue? Time thanked God for the honor of being consulted, and also expressed his sympathy. Then he said, For long, God, I say in all humility, have I harbored an opinion like unto the one You have just stated, but I trembled to say it to anyone. Destruction is ever bitter, and even the thought of the destruction of man, dearest to You of all Your creatures, terrified me. I know, said God mournfully. I know it well. Life has a holiness all its own. But incorrigibility reaches such a stage at times, said Time. When it becomes obnoxious even to itself and when death is blessing. So I beg leave to agree with Your decision. God pondered for a moment, gloom and misery covering His every feature. He nodded to Time in gratitude for his counsel, and said, Though I be omnipotent, I still have not the heart to destroy man without further advice. With your permission I would like to call in Minutes and Seconds, your trusted associates. It would please me to have You to do so, Most merciful Lord, said Time. Whereupon God called in Minutes and Seconds. First He apologized for not having seen them for so long, adding, But I have not been unmindful of your tireless labors in Heaven, and the high joy you applied to those labors. To do Your will is glory enough to us, said Minutes. Your command, O Gracious Lord, is our one enduring pleasure, said Seconds. God told Minutes and Seconds the fateful decision He and Time had discussed, and His wish to get the views of Time s two associates before actually destroying man. Such strength as you can give Me in this My saddest hour, said God, will heighten your station in My eyes and lighten the deep sorrow that weighs on Me. Minutes, next in authority to Time began to speak. Your sorrow, God, is our anguish, he said. Thank you, said God. And Your decision humbles me so much that it leaves me little to say. My thoughts compared to Yours, O God, are as a thin shimmering ray of light from a spluttering candle to the splendor of the sun at high noon. Please speak on, Minutes, I now need every light, however frail and however distant, said God. Thank You, said Minutes. Viewing the world and man from the vantage point of millennia of years, centuries, decades, even hours, not much can be said for man and his waywardness. In the face of Your unbounded forbearance he has shown unbounded ingratitude, flouting Your wishes with mounting contumacy. But viewed from the vantage point of minutes, the domain You have entrusted to me, I think something may be said for man. I hesitate to disagree even this much, said Minutes in a trembling voice. Speak your mind, Minutes, please, said God kindly. Minutes continued, In my province I have noticed many things of beauty. With all reverence I mention a few: the minute a mother first beholds her newborn child, the minute a father sees himself clearly in an action of his son, the minute it takes a girl to say yes to her beloved s deepest longing, the minute of supreme joy when parents behold their first grandchild, the minute of unbounded thankfulness to You after one most dear has been assured deliverance from a wasting sickness. O

Lord, I recall the happiness of Beethoven the minute he completed his Eroica Symphony. His first thought was of You and Your Infinite Goodness. I do remember that minute, said God quietly. And the minute after the English Poet completed King Lear. He, too, first thought of Your Graciousness to him for having chosen him as Your temporary vehicle for Your wisdom and beneficence. And what the Curies thought the minute they knew they had discovered radium! They prayed to You with a heart passing all limits in gratitude. These things I remember, God, these things I cannot forget, and I beseech You to remember them too, before laying destruction upon man forever. God looked at Minutes and said, I thank you, Minutes. You have given Me strength and reminded Me of joys which in My desperation I had almost forgotten. God then turned to Seconds. Speak freely, Seconds, I wish to hear all. I know the purity of your heart. Seconds said, Most Gracious Father, I am thrice blessed for being given this audience. I have much to say but fear the saying of it. My thoughts are as a baby s breath, trusting and not bold. The breath of a baby has much power, said God. For it brings joy most rare. And while it speaks not; it touches the only wisdom. So speak to Me, Seconds. Seconds looked straight at God, with reverence yet with determination, for he was moved by a mighty conviction. He said, I beseech You, God, to bear with my speech and the manner thereof. As the supervisor of the smallest moment of time, I can look into the innermost moments of man s being. Against the canvas of centuries, decades and hours, man truly does appear grotesque, worthy of annihilation. But against my own modest canvas, he appears resplendent with innumerable and multiform glories. Lord, Most High, Ruler of All, while man has denied You in eons, he has ever worshipped You in the still, small passages of duration, in seconds. Consider, again, the seconds when man beholds the splendor of the sun in the morning and the calm sacredness of the sky at eventide. No matter how lowly in station and high in power to do evil a man may be, he does have these seconds of ineffable union with You, for I know that then his soul sings Your praises with unstinted fullness. And then there is the second of bliss eternal when a man and a woman, old in years, look at each other on a Sunday afternoon across a room, and feel

themselves whole in their mutual devotion and blessed in Your eyes. Love ever brings forth praise and prayer to You. Seconds paused a while to catch his breath, for he was speaking with a vigor strange to the ears of God, Time, Minutes, and even to himself. The pleased look on God s face reassured him, and he continued with even greater force. He said, The last second of life on earth, O God, is a regret for all evil done and for the cessation of the privilege to share in Your bounty on earth. In that moment every man and woman inwardly pleads to You for forgiveness and for the opportunity to serve You well and truly in the hereafter. And You have said that a penitent heart ever merits charity. O Lord, even a condemned murderer has his seconds of joy in the memory of flowers gently bowing in the breeze, of a beloved s last glance of compassion, of some good deeds done for their own sake, of a sweet note of music heard long ago. These seconds are Yours, for they are all aspects of Your Goodness. With all adoration for Your Omnipotence, I state that truth, beauty, and goodness do reside in the heart of man, thet he harbors them for many seconds each day, and that for these seconds of blessedness he is grateful to You. I implore You, Most Compassionate God, Father of Mercies and God of All Consolations, O God of Manifold Tenderness, to spare man, if only for the continuation of these seconds of sacred union with You, for such they are. You Who count the tears of all the penitent, count, too, my prayer that man be not destroyed. Seconds had spoken. He began to cry quietly. Time and Minutes also began to cry. And the eyes of God reddened. God then spoke, I am thankful to you all, and to Seconds in particular, for deflecting Me in My resolve to put an end to man. He has yet glories in abundance, and I shall permit him to continue, encouraging him with the charity of divine love. Time, Minutes, and Seconds slowly left God s presence. There was silence in Heaven. Soon a chorus of angels was heard singing softly and joyously.