I once knew an Episcopalian lady in Newport, Rhode Island, who asked me to design and build a doghouse for her Great Dane. The lady claimed to understand God and His Ways of Working perfectly. She could not understand why anyone should be puzzled about what had been or what was going to be.
And yet, when I showed her the blueprint of the doghouse I proposed to build, she said to me, ‘I’m sorry, but I could never read one of those things.’
‘Give it to your husband or minister to pass on to God,’ I said, ‘and, when God finds a minute, I’m sure he’ll explain this doghouse of mine in a way that even you can understand.’
She fired me. I shall never forget her. She believed that God liked people in sailboats much better than He liked people in motorboats. She could not bear to look at a worm. When she saw a worm, she screamed.
She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is Doing.
Up in Central Park,
And a lion-tamer
In the jungle dark,
And a Chinese dentist,
And a British queen—
All fit together
In the same machine.
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice—
So many different people
In the same device.
