The next few months moved very quickly, and I will only summarize them here. If is seems as though I’m skipping too many details, I apologize. But we have a long story to get through, and this is only the beginning. So I will be brief.
Okay, so I sued God. Or I tried. But quite frankly, there isn’t really much to say about it. This story isn’t actually about me suing God. Which is rather strange, considering the name of this book. But it’s true. This story is not about me trying to sue God. It’s about all the things that happened as a result of me trying to sue God.
So I really don’t have much to tell you about the lawsuit itself.The lawyer I hired, on the other hand, is a different story.The lawyer I hired would eventually become a key figure in the story I’m telling you. And so I will tell you about my lawyer.
I nearly fell in love with Anne the first time I heard her voice. It would be several weeks before I would meet her in person, but her voice mesmerized me immediately.
From the very beginning, I felt like I had always known her. Maybe not this version of her - not the life she was currently living. But her personality, I had somehow always known. That’s how it felt, right from the start. And it has ever since.
In the weeks following my dismissal from the middle school (it was actually a suspension, but eventually became a dismissal), I went about contacting a number of local attorneys, most of whom politely declined to take me on as a client. Others were not so polite, and implied that I was either crazy or perpetrating some kind of joke.
I took all of the rejections lightly, knowing full well that it would take some time to find a lawyer who actually understood why I was doing what I was doing. Eventually, I was referred to a woman in Columbus who had done some work for a number of controversial activist groups. The woman’s name was Anne Lewis, and she had been practicing law for 12 years. I left a message for her, including the basic points of my case. She was intrigued by my message, and that evening we spoke on the phone.
Anne and I talked for over an hour, and the more we talked the more excited we grew. I knew she had the perfect personality for such an endeavor, and she told me later that she had hung up the phone that night hoping and praying thatI would choose her to represent the case. I was just as excited and knew that I had found the right person. My determination had paid off. I now had an attorney.
Anne had a number of friends who worked in the media in Columbus as well as around the country. She was very connected and very talkative, and within several days news began to spread that a man from Ohio was attempting to sue God in state court. If I wanted publicity for the case, I had found the perfect lawyer. If not, I had made a terrible mistake.
In fact, I did want publicity. Lots of it. That was the point, as far as I was concerned. Obviously, I wasn’t suing God for money or anything else tangible. At least nothing that any court would consider tangible. First and foremost, I wanted people to think. I wanted them to hear about the lawsuit and ponder the reasons behind it. I wanted people who had never before considered such things to ask themselves why this man was suing God.
Within a week of taking the case, Anne had told dozens of friends and associates about it. And it wasn’t long before my telephone began to ring. I received a few calls the first week, more than a dozen the following week, and after that I gave up answering the phone. Anne decided it would be wise to create a website that would detail the case and the reasons behind it, as well as provide a list of answers to some of the questions that were being asked. One of Anne’s friends volunteered to design and host the website, free of charge, and soon our site was up and running.
The attention being paid to myself and the case was somewhat unnerving for me at first. It was all happening quite fast, almost too fast. I was accustomed to moving slowly through life, pondering decisions and taking my time making them.
Unlike myself, Anne was a very fast mover. The pace of events suited her perfectly. I found myself taking a back seat and watching Anne and everyone else involved do their thing. After a time, I realized that this was just fine. It was enough for me to have initiated the lawsuit. I sometimes smiled when I thought about how little work I was actually doing.
Reporters showed up at my house from time to time, and they called my phone every day. Most of the time I referred them to Anne, or to a public relations friend of hers whom she had brought in to deal with media issues.
It became obvious within a month of initiating the lawsuit that the actual filing of the suit in court was secondary to the attention it was getting. In fact, it was almost irrelevant whether any court would hear the case at all. People wanted to know who this guy was and why he was suing God. They wanted to know what he was thinking. They wanted to know if he was crazy.
The website received more visitors each day, and soon we added a message board. I spent time each day keeping up with the various conversations on the site, occasionally responding to one personally (which created some excitement). In fact, I was well on my way to becoming a celebrity of sorts. All of which I found rather strange.
The school district heard about the lawsuit and quietly informed me that it would be better if we permanently ended our relationship. I was certainly not surprised, nor was I disappointed. I had other interests to pursue now, and although I might return to teaching someday, I had no interest in doing so in the foreseeable future.
I soon grew accustomed to the attention I was getting. And it wasn’t long before I actually began to like it. My neighbors were friendlier to me than ever, and not a day went by without a stranger in town saying hello or asking how the lawsuit was going. The fact that the lawsuit had not yet gone anywhere seemed irrelevant. The phone was ringing off the hook. The website was getting more visitors. Newspaper articles were being written about me.
I felt quite strongly that it was all happening for a reason, though I couldn’t see what that reason was. But I had been told to sue God, and that’s exactly what I was doing.
Only God knew where all of this was going.
