“What does God look like, and what does He do?”
“Don’t ask me. God’s God. He’s everywhere, watching what we do, judging whether it’s good or bad.”
“Sounds like a soccer referee.”
“Sort of, i guess.”
“So God wears shorts, has a whistle sticking out of His mouth, and keeps an eye on the clock?”
“You know that’s not what i mean,” Hoshino said.
“Are the Japanese God and the foreign God relatives, or maybe enemies?”
“How should i know?”
“Listen – God only exists in people’s minds. Especially in Japan, God’s always been kind of a flexible concept. Look at what happened after the war. Douglas MacArthur ordered the divine emperor to quit being God, and he did, making a speech saying he was just an ordinary person. So after 1946 he wasn’t God anymore. That’s what Japanese Gods are like – they can be tweaked and adjusted. Some American chomping on a cheap pipe gives the order and presto change-o – God’s no longer God. A very postmodern kind of thing. If you think God’s there, He is. If you don’t, He isn’t. And if that’s what God’s like, i wouldn’t worry about it.”
– Haruki Murakami, Kafka on The Shore.
Speechless by amazement, I was.
-Jakarta, 2015
Philomate 