Attorney Meissner, Officer Shurner and God's existence
by Joseph Patrick Meissner

My good friend Roger has asked the most basic philosophical question: "Does God exist?"� His usual response is, "No, God is just an illusion of the weak."

But now I am providing the following irrefutable proof for God's existence.

I had finished my end of the year banking and was driving my large black car back to the office where I would stuff more large manila bubble envelopes with my new book, LEGAL WARRIORS. These are 'my babies' and I am seeking good homes for them.

I decided to drive the shore way and get off at the lake park entrance and search for my friends. I drive down the snowy exit and then up the short narrow lane to the beach and parking area. I have the whole rocky beach front to myself. Mine is the only car and I am the only human being enjoying the harsh winter sun gleaming off the parkland. The sunlight actually brightens the wintry day, both physically and emotionally.

Are any of my friends around? There is only one solitary seagull that skims past my slowing car on the left side. I have a sack of old breads and other goodies for the birds, but there is only the one guest for the dinner.

I park the car facing the waters which are as dark purple-grey as the horizon sky just above.

When I get out of the car, I decide to leave the engine running and the heater on, blowing a welcoming hot air filling the interior, although some warning sign keeps popping into my head. I have the CD disc player on as well, relating the story of the Russian empire under the Tsars.

As I exit the car and leave the door open a crack, I stand up straight and there above me are all these seagulls just floating about in the wind and staring at me. Do they remember my car? Do they remember me and food I brought before? Or is it that I am the only one here and so they wonder if I have brought anything today.

I take out a big box of older large glazed donuts from the back seat.

I divide one into pieces and throw the first piece across the snowy parking lot. One bird just swoops down and grabs the entire chunk in his (her?) mouth, leaving its companions without even a crumb

"How greedy you are," I scold. Then I decide to hurl a whole donut which I am certain they will have to share.

The donut rolls across the snow and one bird swoops down and grabs the entire donut. Picture a seagull with an entire round glazed brown doughnut in its beak. No sharing there.

So I divide up the next doughnut, the sweet sticky frosting clinging to my fingers and throw out the pieces. Now a flock of the birds descend for this winter picnic.

I take out more doughnuts as more seagulls arrive. Do they send signals to each other about the food? I do not understand bird calls and bird language.

Soon most of the donuts and food have been eaten, but still the birds crowd about. I throw some pieces high into the air and they grab them with their beaks as they dive toward the earth.

I see some of the birds hopping about on the icy pavement, but they draw one leg up and only use one foot to hop. Is the ground so cold?

I have also taken out my small camera and I am busy clicking away at this winter scene of delight, capturing seagulls floating up above me and my car. I am standing a few feet away from the car.

Somehow the front car door, perhaps blown by the strong wind, suddenly closes shut completely. There is a click.

Oh, oh. The car door has some kind of automatic mechanism that closes and then the lock goes down. No, no, I try to open the door. No luck. I try to open the back seat door. It too is locked. I swing around the back of the car and try the passenger doors on the right side of the car. Everything is locked tight. There are also no cracks in the windows that I could exploit.

I am stranded in the snow while the car is going and I can hear how Alexander the Second was assassinated in 1881 in Russia.

What am I going to do? I will have to walk several miles and try to find someone with a cell phone. I will call my partner and ask her to leave the warm house and drive down to the lake. She will have a key to my car. She will be thrilled by my call.

What else is there? I will have to abandon the running car and start walking in the freezing cold.

The birds are still swirling all about, seeking food and none of them offering me any help. What do they know of car doors and warm car interiors? What had started as a lark has now become serious and I should have obeyed the earlier inside voice that warned me not to keep the car running and the keys in the ignition.

Then suddenly, I see a car approaching. I think it is policeman's car. It is a familiar white car with its rooftop lights.

I wave him down and he stops. He rolls down his passenger side window.

"I have locked myself out of my car," I explain. "Can you help me and call my spouse and have her come?"�

"Well, yes," he says, "Or do you want me to pop the car door and open it?"

"Oh, that would be wonderful," I exclaim.

He sits a few minutes in his car, perhaps calling in or maybe even checking my license plates. He may be wondering what am I doing out here all alone. Perhaps I am looking for some kind of companionship. But I dismiss those thoughts as he gets out of his car and opens his trunk. He takes out some small items and a long blue thin flexible rod.

He then pushes these wedges into my car door between the door and the frame. Will this break the window, I worry.

But he pushes and shoves the wedges, then inserts some kind of tiny plastic bag. He squeezes on a rubber bulb to inflate this bag which opens the wedge wider. In goes the metal rod.

He pushes and tugs. I am waiting for his apology that he cannot open the door. He looks at me and says, "You can wait inside my car."

"No, that is all right," I say. I am feeling like a fool and a half. He does not seem able to do anything when suddenly the passenger window goes down, seemingly almost by itself. The officer has pushed the inside window button located by the door handle.

Now I can get into my car and open my driver door.

I thank the officer. I offer him my business card and say, "You have just helped a lawyer."� (Never pass up a business opportunity.) He laughs. I was afraid earlier to reveal my secret identity for fear he would drive away. I ask his name and he says, "Officer Shurner"� as we shake hands.

"If you ever need any help," I offer, "Just call."

He laughs some more before driving away. I take out my last food, a whole bag of salty potato chips and scatter them in the breeze. Now there is a frantic swirl of grey and white, of wings and tiny bodies as the birds swoop down for this final repast.

I get into the car and slowly drive away.

I am thinking, "Thank God for Officer Shurner and his carjacking ability". Also I realize that if there was no God, a mental midget like myself would never have survived in the world this long. But I have survived. So QED, there is a God.

So here, my good friend Roger, is my elegant Euclidian proof for God's existence. "Without a God, we--especially idiots like myself--would not be. But we are. So God must be."

It is good to be inside the car in the warmth, listening to the account of the First Russian Revolution of 1905, and heading to my office to send out more books. It is even better to realize that the good officer has saved me from an exciting evening of listening to my partner as she discusses my prodigious intelligence.