Dear God, This is one of your hypocrites speaking.

I know you only hear from me when I need something from you, and today is no different. This time, however, I’m not asking for anything personal. I’m actually just looking for answers.

I’m wondering about some things that don’t add up in my mind. The following questions aren’t just for me; they are for an entire nation.

In a nutshell, I worry about our national tolerance and how much of it you are going to actually tolerate.

Here come the questions, at random.

In the United States, why is it that we all have our own beliefs about who you are and how we should live despite the fact that you gave us your never-changing word over 2,000 years ago?

Given that, why do we have so many different versions of you? Has your personality suddenly split?

Why do some of our states allow men to marry men and women to marry women when, from a pro-creation standpoint, it makes no sense at all? You told a man and a woman to populate the earth, which same sex couples obviously cannot do.

Do you cringe every time you hear a justice of the peace or even a minister say, “Frank, do you take this man to be your husband?”

In these cases, did you make a mistake?

Why do the poorest people in our country donate well beyond their means to help others while the rich hold onto everything they have, save for tax-deductible contributions, and continue to make so much more? Did you remodel the afterlife? Are we now permitted to take our possessions with us when we die?

Speaking of the rich, why does 1 percent of our nation control 90 percent of our wealth?

Since I’m on the topic of wealth, why do our governments create and impose taxes under a feigned obligation to community health?

Why do we just accept these taxes (I know, I know… “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s”) when we know they were enacted because our elected leaders have run out of ideas to raise revenue and have decided to further strain the poor and middle classes?

In the future, will there be a fee for inhaling oxygen or exhaling carbon dioxide?

Speaking of fees and taxes, I have thousands of questions about the price of gasoline; But, since I can’t think about it without cussing (and I don’t want to do that in front of you) I’ll move on.

More questions:

Why did we cease to become a government of the people, by the people and for the people as originally planned? What happened to “In God We Trust?”

Why are we allowed to have pictures of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny in our classrooms, but not Jesus Christ? Wasn’t this nation founded on a steadfast belief in you?

Why was “spare the rod and spoil the child” discarded and forbidden in our families and schools? Similarly, why do violent, disruptive, disrespectful children receive special treatment tailored to their “unique personalities” when just twenty years ago, dad/belt/woodshed worked so well?

Why do members of opposite races hate each other? Weren’t we all created by you in your image? If you had created us minus skin, what would we find to dislike about one another?

Why do some people work every day to barely pay their bills while others are given a free pass at the expense of those whose consciences won’t allow them to live on the backs of society?

Conversely, why do those of us blessed enough to be “self-sufficient” feel as though we are not obligated to help those who are truly in desperate need of our assistance. … those who have no other choice but to beg for our support?

How many of us have passed you by without a care as you stood in human form testing our love for one another?

In short, God, why have we become so selfish and money-driven, so tolerant of individual expression, no matter how deviant?

And this separation of church and state stuff, is this really what Jefferson and the boys intended?

Did you know that all of this freedom we take for granted, calling it our “rights as Americans,” would spiral so deeply in just over two hundred years?

Are we the modern day Roman Empire, destined to fall by result of our own gluttony and greed?

When are you finally going to say, “I’ve had enough?”

Did you just say you can’t trust a hypocrite with such information?

I understand.

Billy Bruce is a freelance writer who lives in Pedro. He can be contacted at hollandkat3@aol.com or by visiting his website, billybruce45.com.