By Vincent L. Hall
They say that heaven is ten zillion light years away. And just the pure at heart will walk her righteous streets someday. But if there is a God, we need Him now. ‘Where is your God?’ That’s what my friends ask me. And I say it’s taken Him so long, because we’ve got so far to come…
Sing it, Stevie, I feel ya!
You can literally spend weeks and months surveying and singing all the wondrous music attributed to Stevie Wonder. But when I ran across this song, the message in every measure was apropos. Today, heaven is at least ten zillion light years away.
For those who don’t delve deeply into science, “light years” is not a measurement of time but distance. One light year is equivalent to 10 trillion kilometers.
America is shuddering at the thought of federal budget deficits in the trillions, but the distance and deficit between the USA and God deserves equal concern.
We may claim to be “One nation under God,” but who could tell? God does not despise the poor, banish the immigrants, or threaten the peace and serenity of the planet. God does not promote hate in speech or hateful deeds, and God has to be sick of America provoking his name with nuclear warheads in tow.
How else do you explain the inexplicable series of calamities we suffer? The threat of tyranny, tribalism, and terrorism has absconded the gift of freedom. Our greed and selfishness are annihilating the inheritance of a brilliant biosphere. And love has yielded its influence to hatred and loathing.
Stevie was on to something in 1974 when he released Fulfillingness’ First Finale. All the songs are rich. Each has the distinction of being claimed as somebody’s all-time favorite song. But Stevie testifies that when friends who don’t know his God ask about his God, he goes through hell trying to explain his heaven.
Where is God when war and military annihilation break out in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip? What does he think about Russian soldiers kidnapping children and nations who wield their military might by bombing occupied hospitals? Does Jesus line up with the Palestinians or the Jews? Netanyahu or Hamas? The Soviets or the Ukrainians?
Where is God when conniving capitalists and “robber barons” decry organized labor and trade unionists for demanding a fair share of the pie? Where is God when Republicans deny Biden the moral obligation to forgive student loans that were structured to hold professionals as lifelong captives?
Where is God when children are defiled or left in the wilderness and the ghettos to languish and die? What is he doing while this nation girds its loins with guns and mass-killing machines for the sole benefit of the gun lobby and industry? How far away does heaven seem when dozens of children are mowed down in their classrooms by former students who never learned to manage their own aggression?
Where is God when the Governor of Texas denies mental health appropriations and holds teacher pay hostage in his bid to privatize and further desegregate public schools? What does God think of Affirmative Action, Critical Race Theory, and the assault on historical purity? Did God know that some among the Founding Fathers owned Black bodies and fathered children by them?
Stevie must be in a conundrum because he has the awesome assignment of describing a universal God whom we believe favors White America to the detriment of all others. Stevie couldn’t explain Apartheid in South Africa, the Rwandan genocide, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan’s Southern strategy, or the assassination of George Floyd.
Even at age 73, Stevie is in a bind to extol the rich virtues of a morally bereft people who wear God like a protest placard in Satan’s army. Heaven must feel about as far away in 2023 as in 1973 when he penned this song.
I finally got a fresh glimpse of heaven when I reached the refrain of Stevie’s fulfilling finale: “But if you open your heart, you can feel it, Feel His spirit. I opened my heart one morning and I sho’ nuff could feel it; feel his spirit.”
I pray to God that you can feel him too, and you will if you listen to the song!
Vincent L. Hall is an author, activist, award-winning columnist and a lifelong Drapetomaniac!
