Thank you God, thanks an awful lot.

THANK YOU, GOD. THANKS’ AN AWFUL LOT!

Professor Alan Dale Dickinson

(Copyrighted)

Thank you, God. Thanks’ an awful lot! Oh, for what am I so profusely thanking you for, asked the Lord? Well let me ponder that enormous, and quite relevant question for a moment or too, and then respond.

Okay, God, here we go, first and foremost, you save this old saved scoundrel from going to Hell, not passing ‘Go’ and going straight to Hades. Where there is only misery, pain, continual hurting all over your body, constant suffering and the gnashing to teeth.

They say, and you know who they are, right God? They say, that it is hotter than hell, in hell, however, I think it might also be colder than hell, in hell as well. A place of perpetual darkness, and a very lonely, and pathic place to spend eternity.

           I hear people joke and say, “I will have lots of company when I get to hell, all of my friends will be there.” Well what kind of friends are you hanging around with, may I ask?

And, by the way you will not see them, even if they are there, because you will be in total solitary confinement. It will dark, it will be dreadful, and it will be dank, beyond your wildest imagination.  

I have friends in High Places, like you God, and your Son, Jesus, and all of your many Angels. Those people, and once again, you know who they are, right? have friends in low places, the lowest place of all, hell!

           Now, let me be crystal clear here, if I may Lord, just because I am on my way to ‘Heavenly Places,’ in-lieu of preceding straight to hell, and not passing ‘Go,’ does not mean that I am perfect.

It does clearly does not mean that I am error free, and it certainly does not mean that I have never done anything wrong. As a matter of material fact, I probably have done more wrong things, and or thought wrong thoughts, that a lot of people who are in hell, right now!

           However, as you know better than anyone else, God, because you sent you only precious Son, to sacrifice his life for me; as well as all others who believe in Him, so that even with our very dark human nature, we shall avoid hell, and hell itself.

           Furthermore, it does not even mean that I have not committed lots misdeeds, taken lots of missteps, and/or made many, many ‘faux-pas.’ For as you know full well, God, I have to many ‘boo, boo’s,’ to count. Way, way too many!

           As you also know already know, God, I try and try, and I try again, albeit, I just cannot get everything right. I say the wrong things, I think the wrong things, and I act like a person going to horrible hell, instead of someone who is lucky beyond measure, and on my way to the Pearly Gates.

           No God, I really just do not understand it, I cannot fathom it, I cannot grasp it, nor can I ‘wrap my little brain’ around it. It is my faith-based position, I guess you might say.

           Since I took your gracious, loving and generous grace, and accepted it totally by my faith, I get to go to Heaven instead of that other place, and you know what I mean.

Secondly, if I may continue my little ‘Thank You’ letter to you, God, you have in the past, healed me from various sicknesses, and lots of other illnesses. You have provided all of my needs, over and over, again!

No, you did not always, give old me everything that I asked for, my wants so to speak, because you knew that whatever they were, they would not have been good for me to have.

Now, because of my stiff-necked self, on occasion you, God, have given me what I begged you for, and each and every time, it was a total disaster, or worse.

That is why people say, “Be careful what you ask for.” And I have learned over the many, many long years of my life, not to ask for my wants, just my, needs. And he has, and still to this very day, provided all of them. Indeed.

Please allow me to give you just a few examples of how selfish I can be, a) I asked God to make me rich, and He did. I was born and raised in a Barrio, in East L.A. (Los Angeles, California), and I had very humble beginnings.

However, by the time I was forty years old, I was a millionaire, then someone, a very bad person, stole all of my fortune away from me. I was sad, very, very sad to lose my life savings.

Then you, God looked down on me and said, “Alan, my son, you cannot handle being rich, so I had to take it all away, however, in its place, I am going to make your famous.”

“I am going to make you an Internationally known Mystery Novelist.” You will not be wealthy any-longer, but you will be well-known, very well known, all around the Globe.

Yes, God, I am trying, trying really hard, to be a better husband, a better citizen, a better dad, a better writer, a better neighbor, and especially a better man. So why, God, do I keep failing, you may ask? Well Lord, why do I keep falling down.

           Just when I think that I have arrived, I say something stupid, think something, and/or do something stupid. I just do not seem to be able to prevent myself from falling into the abyss over, and over, again.

           Thirdly, God, I ‘Thank You’ for telling me that that is okay, Alan, I know that you tried very hard, and yet failed, and that is alright with me, because you are a man after my own heart, and you tried your best to succeed.  

God, you know that I have always treated ‘all’ your people with civility, and also R. E. S. P. E. C. T. As the incomparable Ms. ‘Aretha Franklin’ (by the way; I just love Ms. Franklin), said so well in her marvelous and Gold, record song by the same name.

I also loved marvelous voiced, Ms. Etta James, and my favorite song that she rendered, “At Last,” is one of my all-time favorite songs. It truly is.

As you know, God, I am white on the outside, and that is what people who do not know me see, albeit, on the inside, I am part Hispanic, part Black, part Korean, part Native American, as well as part white too.  

Thirdly, God, as you well know, I have worked the mean-streets of East L.A., Compton, Watts, and south-Central L.A. (Los Angeles, California).

I have never met any nicer, kinder, and/or gracious people, anywhere in the State, than the people who live in those areas. Even the gangbangers did not bother, stab, and or shoot me, which they could have done many, many times, because I treated them with respect.

They knew that I did not condone they criminal activities, and yet they could see that I thought of them as human beings, and not just dirt-bags, like some of the other cops did.

Most all of my friends on the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) treated them fairly, just as I did, however, there are a few Bad-apples, everywhere that you go these days.

Police Chief, Michael Moore, and his whole administrative staff, believe just as I do, and they get rid of the biased and bad-cops, whenever, and wherever, they find them.

Of course, they did not condone their criminal activities either and yet they also did not disrespect them. And they always tried to treat them as ‘human beings,’ many of who came from broken homes, lived on the rough streets and some of them, had horrible examples set by their parents.

In addition, God, I have found that if you give just a little bit more than you’re asking for, you will have a long and very fulfilling, joyful, and successful lifetime. And you will get along with almost everyone that you meet in this crazy, ole, mixed up world.

As you know God, my life has been a very long, winding and quite interesting journey. It truly has, with clowns to the right of me and jokers to the left of me, and there I was stuck right in the middle of all of them.

Also, during the duration of my living life while time passes on, sometimes slowing, too slowly, and sometimes faster than a ‘speeding bullet,’ that you have had me encounter some very nefarious, vicarious, and extremely meanspirited people.

Why was that God? I have especially been harassed, oppressed and unfairly defamed by several attorneys. Ones who consider them ‘above the law’ because that can almost kill you and claim ‘litigation’ privilege!

I am pretty sure, and now to think about it, I am absolutely sure, that I am not even aware of all of the things that you have done for me, during my lifetime here on this old Globe.

 As a matter of fact, I am totally convinced of that major material fact that I seem to know deep down in my Soul, that is true beyond-a-shadow whatsoever. There were a number of times that I almost died, yet I did not because you were there to save me!

I must say, once again, if i may; 

"Thank you, God. Thanks an awful lot."