The real reason Jesus's face keeps turning up in stupid places like toast and tarmac spills.

[baby_mouse]

It's all because of FAITH.

Stay with me on this.

You have to choose God because you believe in him, not because he obviously exists. If God was visible in the sky, peering down at us all benevolently combing out the jet planes constantly getting caught in his beard saying "Hello" and giving the occasional wave to the Pope and the paparazzi, a third heavenly body like the sun or moon, no-one would sin cos they go to Hell. They'd KNOW they would go to hell. And that means he'd never know if anyone was truly evil. There must always be doubt that he's real. His followers have to choose him to show that they are good people, who'd vote for the Devil with God staring down at you? He has to tell his children how to behave, obviously, but because he's SOOOO HUUUUGE it'd be too scary for them not to disobey him if he didn't hide behind the curtain, so he talks through prophets and priests and suchlike so they have an IDEA of what's good and evil and then they can make up their minds for themselves. Free will, ya see.

But it;s not a symmetrical battle, the Devil has no rules and can do what he likes. So he can get out his best Republican suit and go on TV and say "I'm just plain evil, vote for me!" and people will vote for him because people love to try out new things. The devil's publicity campaign manager must being having a ball, cos he doesn't have to follow any rules. "Look at me!" the Devil shouts. "I've got all the money! Greed is good! Rich people are better than poor people! Be rich! Anger is good! Arabs are bad! Shoot each other! Pride is good! We're no. 1! USA, USA, USA! Gluttony is good! Buy large! Turn everything into tasty food and eat it! Buy SUVs and waste the last remaining drops of oil you have as fast as you can! Sloth is good! Stay in front of your TV an switch off your brain and do nothing all day! It's okay, it's normal! Envy is good! You ant someone's oil? TAKE IT!" he shouts, day in and day out on the TV, over the radio, through shock jock radio, everywhere, all the time.

Now, this isn't fair. If God's not careful, he's going to lose ALL his kids to that pesky Devil. So he has to cheat.

But he has to cheat within his own rules, so he has to subtract credibility from any message containing any hint that he exists by making it turn up somewhere stupid. Like Jesus faces in coffee spills or in the chest hair of overweight men. Or carrots shaped like the Virgin Mary. Or fish that talk Latin. And so on. Wherever it goes, the message has to look dumb and like a mistake, or a coincidence. So long as its just enough to remind people he's there. But people are getting spider and more credulous every day, so the places he puts his messages keep getting dumber and dumber.

So, in heaven there must be a publicity department full of really really stressed angels desperately trying to come up with new media to promote their product through. Endlessly flapping their wings nerviously and berating each other for not thinking outside the box enough.

"Hey, hey! Guys, guys, guys! We haven't done barely legible messages scrawled in spilled Twinkie cream by air hostess trolleys!"

"My MAN!"

"High five me, bro!"

"Its been done."

"No WAY."

"Sure it has. Absolutely. Don't you read files? 1987, dude, it was manifest on the galley floor of a 747 for, like, 6 hours. No-one saw it except a paranoid schizophrenic from Berlin. No-one believed her."

"Aw, man. Does that mean we can't do it again?"

"Never do the same show twice, man. What if it got on Youtube and back to the same schizophrenic? WAY too obvious, man. Look what happened to David Ike."

"Okay. Okay. TV static?"

"That's like 'Poltergeist'. Way too plausible. Everyone would snap it up."

"This job is insane."

"Welcome to Heaven..."

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. That's as good an explanation as any other.

I am hoping desperately to find a Jesus face in some ordinary item, like a dried cat poo or a zucchini or a dirty dishrag, so I can sell it on E-Bay for a small fortune to some poor deluded fundie sap.