Dusting off the pledge

A press release was received.

Actually, the press release appeared in the large pile of mail which faced me returning from vacation.

No stamp and just a single word for the return address: “God.” I noticed it right away. Plus it was typed on what appeared to be an old Underwood manual typewriter.

If we were still worried about anthrax in the mail, I might have called the cops. But the typewriter was a dead giveaway: That’d be about right for God; he usually stays a generation or two behind us humans. That’s not a bad thing, especially when it comes to values.

You’d think getting a letter from God would cause quite a stir around the office. Nope. Newspapers get sent just about everything you can imagine. Over the years I’ve received mail ranging from a cow pie to purported gold dust. (yes, the cow pie was real; the gold dust wasn’t.)

But about that press release ...

“Fr*m the desk of God,” it began, the old Underwood skipping a letter here and there. “God is disapp*inted regarding the current controversy over the Pledge of Allegiance.”

Awwright, I thought, his poor typing notwithstanding, God’s finally gonna tell that panel of California judges who are trying to outlaw the reference to God in the pledge where to go. And it won’t be to Disneyland.

The release continued: “God t*day announced that he is making a statement.” (God, incidentally, seems just as bad as most press-release writers; lots of words before getting to the real stuff. Whatever happened to his concise writing in the 10 Commandments? Maybe he had a good editor.)

“God wants people to know that including ‘under God’ (actually, he wrote “under Me”) in the pledge isn’t such a bad thing. Most things are, you know, ‘under’ God.”

God wrote that not only is the phrase quite appropriate for the people of the United States, but the same should go for every other nation as well. “They, too,” he wrote, “are under God, even if they don’t know it.”

By now, I’m wondering when God is going to get to the point. So far, this press release isn’t going to make the paper.

But then came the punch. He wrote: “God is disappointed over false advertising.”

Whoa … now God’s a consumer activist? Isn’t one Ralph Nader enough?

“‘One nation, under God,’ are nice words,” God wrote. “Very powerful, very important words. But only when they have meaning.”

The release went on: “Since the Year of our Lord, 1954, ‘under God’ has been part of the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States. And since that time, there has been less and less in society to support the claim. That’s false advertising.”

I was just about to toss the letter as a fake and a fraud. If this is God, where’s the fire and brimstone? What’s God gonna do, call out the Better Business Bureau?

The next paragraph answered that question. God wrote, “Frankly, I don’t care if you use the words or not. I care about the actions behinds the words. Remember, you already use my name on your money, but it’s the money you trust in, not me. God doesn’t need money, but I could use more trust.”

Then God made his threat: Shape up or he’s going to withdraw his seal of “God Housekeeping.”

OK, right about now, you’re supposed to groan loudly and complain that this column was a 600-word setup for a bad joke. Or at least for bad satire. Maybe. But then, calling ourselves “under God” and acting otherwise does equate to false advertising. Well, doesn’t it?

That’s something to think about as the glow of the Fourth of July wears off.

Tom Sheridan
Editor and General Manager