The Mother of all Sin is Theft. That assertion certainly isn’t original with you but you question why theft occupies such a lowly rung on the Sacred Tablets. “Thou shalt not steal” is in fact the 8th Commandment. You must concede, as Author, God had every right to give Moses a set of rules and that He could prioritize them in any way that suited Him. They were His rules, after all. Predictably, therefore, He placed Himself front and center, even admitting to jealousy, a rather human affliction. Commandments 1-4 duly mandate that you render Him the love, respect and fidelity He deserves — exclusively — or else. No problem. He’s the Boss. Commandments 1-4 concern, therefore, your spiritual relationship to Him in the heavenly realm. Suddenly, then, The Commandments do a 180 and dictate your mortal relationship in the physical world. That abrupt change in direction doesn’t add up. In hindsight, He could have instructed Moses to publish two documents: One, “The Four Commandments,” subtitled “Man’s Relationship to God;” the second, “The Six Commandments,” subtitled “Man’s Relationship to Man.” For that matter, the original document could have been happenstance. For the sake of argument, you could allege that Jehovah threw down a couple of dozen or more laws in no particular order and it was Moses who prioritized, tabulated and edited them, guessing that Ten would be far easier to brand than, say, Nine, Fifteen or Twenty Six. Not particularly skilled in this sort of stenographic endeavor, he simply winged it. He’s on this cold, barren mountain for 80 days (and nights) in two separate sessions, for pete’s sake; he doesn’t have a Bic and posted notes handy. No pocket recorder. No IPad. You can only imagine how he managed to juggle this information until he had time to transcribe it. You have to give him credit for capturing what he did. He had his hands full. He had to take time out from this historic interview with God to massacre approximately 3000 of his own people for daring to worship a Golden Calf. Given the same assignment today, with the help of Power Point methodology, and assuming Ten was the magic number, the Commandments might have looked like this:

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
I. Man’s Union With God
A. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
a. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing.
b. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.
B. Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy.
II. Man’s Union With Man
A. Thou shalt not steal.
a.Thou shalt not kill.
b.Thou shalt not commit adultery.
c.Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
d.Thou shalt not covet
B. Honour thy father and thy mother

Essentially, Two Commandments run the show. There’s only one God and you better worship Him. And you can’t steal, period. Everything else is a subset. In the clear light of day, almost every sin of man’s inhumanity to man is rooted in Theft. Every second of every day, men steal lives and property. On a grand scale, nations invade nations for one purpose — to steal. Tribes massacre tribes for one purpose — to loot and pillage. Joshua led the Jews to commit genocide at Jericho for only one purpose — to annihilate the people and steal their wealth (all of course with God’s blessing). Serial killers get off on stealing life itself. Crime syndicates kill to steal and steal to kill.  Government is a world-class thief and ultimate taker of life. Elected officials steal from people living today and people not yet born. They live in the lap of luxury, squander the public treasury and feather their nests. You will be hard pressed to think of a single iniquity not related to Theft — whether you lie, cheat, covet or kill. Evidently, God planted a Theft Gene deeply into the human DNA and then commanded humans to reject it on pain of Hell itself. If you weren’t so fearful of retaliation, you might suggest He pulled a dark joke of cosmic proportion. Because, genetically, humans are driven to steal. No walk of life, however lofty, or lowly, is immune. This must be true. The evidence was and is explicit — in war-torn lands, in prisons, in boardrooms, in courts of law, in bungalows and mansions, on farms, in factories, in public buildings and private places. If this were not true, human history simply would not repeat itself. Human history does in fact repeat itself precisely because humans precisely repeat their behavior — slaves to the Theft Gene. At the end of the day, you have to look in the mirror and ask: “Are you guilty of Theft? Of course not. Of course not. Well, maybe a slip here — or there — nothing that amounts to anything . . . . . . . . .

In case you haven’t heard, America has a black President. At least that’s what you’ve learned from exactly 100% of the experts who write and talk for a living. 100% is a sizable number. If you disagree with 100%, you might say you occupy a minority position. Well, so did Copernicus. The truth is you don’t disagree with the “President” part. It’s the “black” part that baffles your sense of common sense. The experts have agreed the President is the only issue of one Stanley Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas, and one Barack Obama, Sr. of Nyang’oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province, Kenya. Dunham was white. Obama was black. You see where this is going. Who decreed that the progeny of a white mother and black father is black? And who decreed that the progeny of a white father and black mother is black? You must conclude that, genetically, black is superior to white. Or God forbid, inferior. Depends entirely on your prejudice. Who decides? If Mr. Obama, ostensibly born in America, is black, does that mean a son born in Africa to a white father and black mother is white? This dilemma persuades you to advance an empirical postulate that surely will be adopted by every world-class  institution of higher learning: Human beings shall henceforth be classified by the color of their skin, not the content of their DNA (apologies to MLK). In America, this precept has special meaning. The President is Black, African and American, in that order. Apparently, having a white mother is irrelevant. Apparently, the nation of one’s birth is equally meaningless. In Germany, a newborn is German. Likewise, the earth is populated with Cambodians, Brazilians, Bulgarians, Egyptians, Kenyans, Peruvians, Russians — you get the point. In America, however, a newborn with at least one black parent is black, period. Not American, mind you. But African American. You might suspect that these observations have a racist undertone. No kidding, Gertrude. The American black community hangs on to Race like Charlie Rangel hangs on to his House seat. Conclusion: A white citizen is an American; a black citizen is an African American. Understandably, black citizens embrace a black first attitude. This proclivity is decidedly in their self interest. There’s no advantage in being just another run-of-the-mill American. Too easy to get lost in a crowd. Too easy to lose the underdog status and control. Playing the victim is win-win. If you win, you win against all odds. If you lose, you play the race card and win again. In America, if you procreate with a white, yellow, red or caramel person, your offspring will be black, guaranteed. In another 150 years or so, African Americans may decide, like dozens of other nationalities, that being plain American is a blessing. Maybe they will acknowledge that over 350,000 white people died to end slavery. Maybe they will recognize that white Americans elected Barack Obama in 2007. Maybe they will learn to be color blind. You think?

In The Bible, Old and New Testament alike, celestial visitation among the rank and file is commonplace. God, as well as any number of His lieutenants, call on all manner of ordinary mortals, generally advising them to adopt some sort of action or mission. In some of these encounters, actual conversations take place, especially if there’s a misunderstanding. For example, God and Moses meet routinely. Abraham, Jacob, Zechariah, Elisha, Paul and many others shoot the breeze quite often.  Other visitations come in the form of dreams and visions — fire breathing horses, chariots, golden candlesticks, a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes, frogs, dragons, temples and hosts of angels governing over complicated rituals. You know all too well that eminent theologians have dissected the Scriptures and have decreed what is indeed fact, what is metaphorical and what is allegorical. None of it can be bogus, else all of it might be suspicious. So, you see, learned clerics throughout the world somehow make sense of Divine revelations and you go with the flow, trusting in the centuries of their combined wisdom. But you must admit to a certain despondence. Countless nights you lay awake staring into blackness, incessantly invoking the appearance of God, an angel or any other spiritual entity. After years of pleading, you cannot reconcile the utter lack of response — not a glow, not a glimmer and not a whisper, not to speak of a Booming Voice calling your name. And where is Clarence, assuring you with his sweet smile that you’ve had a wonderful life worth living? Nowhere to be found. You imagine there must be billions — or trillions — of such angels with nothing but eternity on their hands. Seems only logical. Would it be such a dreadful imposition to pop in on someone who has the welcome mat out? On any given day, one of the lesser cherubs could easily make a cameo appearance at your bedside, say, for a minute or two. Not a lot to ask. Reserving spiritual visitation for the Biblical centuries seems discriminatory at best, and shameful at worst. To be sure, many individuals in “modern” times claim divine connections and there’s no absence of self-proclaimed messiahs, some unfortunately residing in high places. Joe Smith founded his own religion following a close encounter of the first kind. In a ’94 Newsweek survey, no less than 13 percent of Americans claimed seeing or sensing an angelic presence. But there’s no compelling evidence that God or any of His minions are engaged in personal pow-wows with anyone. If He would simply authorize a celestial courier to visit, or make a personal appearance Himself, you would gladly take the opportunity to offer Him a little marketing advice. You would recommend He identify 1000 of his most trusted Heavenly residents, preferably those who had earned their wings, to simultaneously visit 1000 of the world’s most devout atheists. Each angel would deliver precisely the same message. You can’t presume to dictate that message, but a simple “Hello” or “Yes, there is a Hell, Matilda” would do very nicely. You can only imagine the universal impact of 1000 stunned atheists, swearing in unison, in their native tongues, witnessing to an identical message. Since this fantasy is a product of deranged thinking, you decide to file it as a possible screenplay idea. But your frustration will not allow you to abandon your nightly supplications. However impatiently, you will continue to proffer your invitations. You will ask and wait and ask again. Just one brief, quality visit. After all, who mandated that The Bible should be a closed book? Maybe it’s time to draft the 28th Book of the New Testament. High time.