‘God’ text befuddles this agnostic
While standing over a sink in a hospital restroom, my iPhone slipped out of my hands and onto the floor.
I had just sent an update to my fiancee on a loved one’s emergency surgery. After drying my hands, and cursing about my feebleness, I leaned down and picked up my phone, hoping its screen didn’t crack.
I quickly glanced at my phone and one word — God. — appeared out of nowhere on my end of our text exchange. I didn’t type it and I didn’t say it using my audio texting tool. It just popped up.
I stood in front of the mirror and looked at myself for a few seconds, quietly dumbfounded. Then I looked around to see if anyone was watching me. Nope. I was alone. Or was I?
God? Of all the words that could have popped up out of the blue, it was God. Really? I don’t know how it got there. I don’t know why. And I’m not quite sure how to explain it.
If someone told me this happened to him, I wouldn’t have believed it. I’d ask, “Did you somehow type it before the phone slipped out of your grasp?” “Are you sure it wasn’t from your audio texting tool?” “Were you planning on starting a sentence with God when you dropped your phone?”
No, no, and no, I told myself.
Immediately after the word appeared on my phone, I received a text reply from my fiancée. She sent an emoji showing prayer hands in response to seeing “God” on our text exchange. I hurriedly tried to explain what happened.
“I dropped my phone and that was the word that popped up when I picked the phone up,” I texted.
She replied with another emoji of a surprised face.
Surprised, indeed.
I’m a reborn agnostic after living my teenage years as a cynical atheist. These sorts of “God winks,” as they’re called by believers, only happen to those people who are looking for them, I always believed. It’s sort of like seeing the face of Jesus Christ in a pop tart or a cloud formation or a puff of holy smoke.
I took a screenshot of my “God” appearance and posted it on social media. Dozens of readers commented with their beliefs, theories and well-wishes.
“Hoping your loved one’s surgery was a success,” one woman said.
Was she suggesting that it was strictly God who guided that surgery? This did cross my mind as I walked back to my loved one’s hospital room that night.
“There are signs everywhere … you just have to be open to seeing them,” another woman commented.
This has often been a difficult jump for me spiritually, outside the boundaries of reason, by taking a Kierkegaard leap of faith, named for the Danish existentialist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. It’s a Catch-22 conundrum with a chicken-versus-egg origin.
“Don’t feel bad, buddy, not many of us can ‘explain’ God. Just have to believe, all you need is the faith of a mustard seed,” one man suggested.
“You just never know when that message is needed. It must have been your moment,” someone else noted.
“Divine power right there,” a man added.
“Faith. That’s why it’s there,” a woman declared.
I expected such responses from people of faith. And I appreciated their heartfelt insights. But a few skeptical pragmatists came up with more rational, plausible explanations.
“You might have had your finger on the G when you picked it up, and the phone just auto-finished a word FOR you. And what better one?” asked another reader.
Yes, I also thought this could have explained what happened. But I picked up my phone by its case, as I always do, not by its screen. So I ruled out this possible theory.
“God with a period, too!” someone else commented, noting the text’s proper punctuation. “Maybe you hit the microphone button and on its way down, it captured part of your expletive. If you look at those letters on the keyboard, it’d be hard to press those three letters and the period ... and with a capital G, too.”
“Voice to text only picked up part of what you said,” another reader surmised.
Nope, I replied. I didn’t use my microphone button for voice to text.
“It’s official. JD has cracked,” someone joked. This is possible.
“God friended you,” a woman wrote.
“Wow, it’s like an episode of ‘God Friended Me,’” another person added.
“Maybe you’re Northwest Indiana’s version of ‘God Friended Me’?!!” was another comment.
I had to look up “God Friended Me,” a new CBS-TV show about an outspoken atheist whose life is turned upside down when he receives a friend request on social media – from God – and who then unwittingly becomes an agent of change in the lives and destinies of others around him.
“After repeated pokes by God … he accepts the ultimate friend request and follows the signs,” the show’s website states.
Hmmm … a social media friend request from God? This is too corny for me. It sounds like a TV comedy show premise, not a profound connection between a mortal and a deity.
“He’s just lettin’ ya know that He’s right there with you … always,” one reader maintained.
“God is calling you, Jerry. What are you going to do? Answer or ignore???” another reader asked.
“Quit being such a hard ass. You know what it means,” a woman insisted. No, I don’t actually.
She might know. And you might know, too. Me? Not so much.
Still, I sincerely enjoyed the experience. Regardless of the “how” and “why” aspects, I sincerely appreciated “when” and “where” it happened, and also “who” may or may not have appeared on my phone.
After all, if “Dog” popped up, this column would never have appeared.