If you could ask for one thing, what would it be?

That was the question asked.

Well, I'd pull out my magic lamp and call upon my genie,

Who would come out billowing green train smoke and demanding that I wish for something in a voice so loud that you think he was an old person using a phone for the first time

And I'd use my first wish to wish for more wishes

(Because, really, smart people cheat)

And my second wish of suddenly infinite wishes to find out which star in the sky is the most magical so that I could wish on that star and,

Quoting countless beauty queens, I would look at that star and plop down on my knees

And solemnly ask for world peace.

 

Well, that's what I would do if searching my pockets long enough won me a genie and stars could hear my wishes sooner than a few million years in the future.

I forgot to mention that I would also wish on superstitions like lost eyelashes and such,

But they wouldn't help any more than the technologically impaired genie would.

And really, world peace is not a single, finite thing you can ask for.

World peace is a bunch of things smashed into one name,

Like political stability in every country and fewer selfish billionaires and rulers running around,

And you cannot get everything you want by just calling it all by one name

(Because cheating is only okay when it's with genies.).

Getting everything that's wrong with the world to go away by simply asking for ¨world peace¨ is like wishing your house was all fixed up without stopping to think about the plugged toilet, flooded basement, cracked baseboards, leaky roof, ancient furnace, unsafe fireplace, peeling paint, gusty windows, warm refrigerator, cold oven, asbestos pipes, sparking outlets, dirty garage, dead house plants, shaky foundation, and maybe that hole punched through your ceiling  by that meteor last week.

 

So, if I could ask for one thing, I would probably pray rather than ask.

I would pray:

Please, let there be a God. Let there be a God who is kind.

I know that many people would tell me that there is already a God, that the world is good and will be peaceful one day, that even if the world is forever wicked we will all be with God one day,

But if we already have a God,

One who lets children starve, lets people die of incredibly horrible diseases, and does not stop humanity from raging wars against itself,

Then I do not want Him.

If I could wish for just one thing, it would be that the world could have a God who saved innocent people from suffering and kept drunk drivers from hitting bystanders.

If there is already a God, then perhaps I will go to Hell for saying these words, but that only makes me fear him more, makes me want a kind God more.

Please, I pray, let there be a God who can give us world peace instead of watch us die at the hands of both natural disasters and our fellow humans.

Let there be a God, and let him be a kind God who will save us rather than punish us for being born in a cruel world.

Please, just this one thing.