On THAT old chestnut, again

On THAT old chestnut, again

We read from the words of the Prophet Rowan Atkinson in the sacred texts of Not The Nine O'Clock News: "So, if there IS a God, why, I ask you, does he let you get hurt when you're doing someone a good turn?"

Yes, that old chestnut again.

Take, for example, a weekend spent helping our neighbours move house. In fact, they're emigrating and there's a middle-to-high chance that we might never see them again.

And while they're committed Christians, there was nothing remotely godly about my motives for helping out – it's just the kind of thing good neighbours do for their friends when they've got to get all the mattresses in the world out of the house, sharpish.

One expects and receives no reward but for the small box of Salvation Army hymn books of uncertain vintage and a Winnie the Pooh pedal bin.

So, if anyone's deserving of a good, hard smiting, it's them for the clear and present sin that is the fingering of the 'Blood and Thunder' literature.

Monday morning dawns, then, to find your humble author propped against on the toilet, struck down with a vomiting bug, bowking rich, brown vomit into any receptacle I can find. Including, but not limited to: toilet, buckets, shoes, wheelie bins, the dog.

In fact, the gush of illness is so intense that I somehow contrive to smash my hand and forearm into a patchwork of bruises in what can only be described on the insurance forms as a "bizarre vomiting injury".

So, I ask again, if there IS a God, why is it that he lets you get hurt when you're doing somebody a good turn?

Thanks for NOTHING invisible sky zombie.