Lately I’ve been enjoying the work of Robert F. Capon. He has a way of getting me unstuck from whatever theological, philosophical, or social problems that are squatting on my mind. The good news is a joke, the most lighthearted and slapstick story there ever was. And I need reminders of this as often as possible.
Let me tell you why God made the world. One afternoon, before anything was made, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit sat around in the unity of their Godhead discussing one of the Father’s fixations. From all eternity, it seems, he had had this thing about being. He would keep thinking up all kinds of unnecessary things — new ways of being and new kinds of beings to be. And as they talked, God the Son suddenly said, “Really, this is absolutely great stuff. Why don’t I go out and mix up a batch?” And God the Holy Spirit said, “Terrific! I’ll help you.” So they all pitched in, and after supper that night, the Son and the Holy Spirit put on this tremendous show of being for the Father. It was full of water and light and frogs; pine cones kept dropping all over the place and crazy fish swam around in the wine glasses. There were mushrooms and mastodons, grapes and geese, tornadoes and tigers — and men and women everywhere to taste them, to juggle them, to join them and to love them. And God the Father looked at the whole wild party and said, “Wonderful! Just what I had in mind! Tov! Tov! Tov!” And all God the Son and God the Holy Spirit could think of to say was the same thing, “Tov! Tov! Tov!” So they shouted together “Tov!” And they laughed for ages and ages, saying things like how great it was for beings to be and how clever of the Father to think of the idea, and how kind of the Son to go to all that trouble putting it together, and how considerate of the Spirit to spend so much time directing and choreographing, and for ever and ever they told old jokes, and the Father and the Son drank their wine in unitate Spiritus Sancti, and threw ripe olives and pickled mushrooms at each other per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.
It is, I grant you, a crass analogy; but crass analogies are the safest. Everybody knows that God is not three old men throwing olives at each other. Not everyone, I’m afraid, is equally clear that God is not a cosmic force or principle of being or any other dish of celestial blancmange we might choose to call Him. Accordingly, I give you the central truth that creation is the result of a Trinitarian bash, and leave the details of the analogy to sort themselves out as best they can.
—Romance of the Word*
On reading this, it amazed me how closely it mirrored a dream I once had years ago, long before I heard of Capon. In my dream, shouts of Tov! Tov! (Hebrew: good) were a back-and-forth symphony between Father and Son as the Son dove into the salty sea, smelled the wisteria and ran with the bulls. Experiencing joy was the origin of all work and play. If only we knew how much creation was a great big drinking party…
About Robert Farrar Capon
Robert F. Capon was an Episcopalian priest, armchair theologian, satirist and food writer in New York City.
- Here’s an example of his food writing at the New York Times.
- And a lovely memorial piece about him in Christianity Today: “Remembering Robert Capon.”
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