GOD: ASSEMBLY REQUIRED?

There is a company called MakerBot-its product is a Thing-O-Matic, which is a 3D printer that makes whatever design you've created on your computer into a six-inch plastic model. The cost is about $1,300, and it takes 12 hours to put it together. I think there's an obvious religious connection here-at least in a commercial sort of way.

God created the world and everything in it B.P. (before plastic). MakerBot can't answer your prayers but it can answer your wildest dreams in the form of stuff. (Actually the product that makes stuff is the Thing-O-Matic, I just like the idea of a MakerBot so I'm going to call it that.)

We were talking about the difference between the existence and the presence of God in Sunday School this morning. The arguments are endless. Existence versus presence, for some reason, makes me think of time. Live each day with the awareness that it's sacred, because it is, and there's no better proof of God's presence or existence to me than that.

So if time is one of the most obvious gifts-we could also call it life--do we fill every moment that we're alive with productive labor, to afford things that we can write our names on-the deed to a beach house, the title to a boat, a good address, two or four cars, a motorcycle, some mountain bikes. A piano. An expensive stereo system. Shirts that cost $800. And then there's lots of ways to spend money on new technology, in fact, there's always a way to spend money on new technology. Like the $1,300 Thing-O-Matic.

If you prayed for those things, would the real God cave in and get them for you? Probably not. Whenever I get a chance to ask God for something, ultimately I never really ask God to make anyone else do anything or for any material thing beyond what I need for survival and I always have that (thank you God). So I usually ask for peace for others, for myself. For emotional wounds to heal. Or to be a better person. Or forgiveness. Courage. Or, when I'm really convinced I have no idea what to want, I just ask for God's presence, for God to be with me. No plastic. No assembly required.