Once upon 2.77 acres

Once upon 2.77 acres of land, people discovered God. Some 
of the people called Him Rama. Some called Him Allah. God 
smiled at them all, because only He knew that He was in every 
name, and that He was beyond names.

Sometimes God tried to explain this to the people, but they 
could not understand. He tried to tell them through the leaves 
of trees, and through the songs of birds. He planted His truth 
in the eyes of every child, and He waited for the people to 
see it. But they would not look, and so they did not see.

The people, however, did love God. They were fascinated 
by Him. They adored and feared Him, and they chose beautiful 
ways to worship Him. They did not all choose the same way, 
of course, because God had long ago breathed into each of these 
people the gifts of self-expression and choice. So some of the people 
heard a hymn to God in the striking of a bell, and some 
heard it in the voice of a man calling them to prayer.

God heard them both. But in time, another sound started to drown 
out the hymns He loved. It was the sound of the people, quarrelling 
amongst themselves as to whose god God was.

God bowed His head and wept. And the people looked up 
and said, “Ah, rain.”

For a time, they were distracted, and they began to speak of weather 
and soil and geography. But inevitably, they returned to their arguing. 
And this time they quarrelled about whose land God’s land was.

“Mine,” said God, whispering the word through the rustle of leaves. 
But the people could not hear the word over the noise of their angers 
and their fears.

“Yours,” said God, scattering the word through the songs of birds. 
But the people were too busy gathering evidence to spare any time 
to find the word.

“Ours,” said God, shining the word through the eyes of children. 
But the people kept their eyes fixed, burning with hate, upon 
each other, and did not notice the word.

Besides, the people had found a new word, a word that felt 
powerful and reassuring. It was not a word that was as powerful 
and reassuring as God Himself, but it felt real and solid. It could 
be touched and prodded and probed, taken apart and put back together.

“Proof!” all the people cried, in a brief moment of unity. 
“Proof is what we need!”

And God wondered when proof had replaced Him. Faith was 
all He had hoped for, and all His gifts had been gifts of love. 
Proof had never been one of them.

Nobody knows the exact day when He walked quietly away 
from those 2.77 acres of land, and nobody said goodbye, 
because nobody noticed He had left.