The Andy God

God’s first name was Andy, as per an old joke I came across one time, probably in Roorkee, where a kid thought that because of the song he often hears and sings which goes:

Andy walks with me

Andy talks with me

Andy tells me I am his own…

Which of course, was a mishearing of the hymn In The Garden which actually goes:

And He walks with me

And He talks with me

And He tells me I am his own…

Misheard song lyrics are mostly always funny. There’s a thin white dude on Instagram who puts on a wig, takes up a hairbrush, and makes reels on misheard lyrics. I forget his IG handle. I particularly love the ones where Lorraine is involved… like “Have you ever seen Lorraine… coming down on a sunny day?” or “I can see clearly now Lorraine is gone” or “I bless Lorraine down in Africa!” High-la-ree-ous.

Speaking of the Gram, going off on a tangent, all these made me think about how it’s insane the way people misread lives. Social media gives everyone who has the time and inclination a free platform. Somehow it has fed so enthusiastically into our narcissism. One, we begin to think we have way more influence than we actually do because of online interactions – our Likes and Comments. Two, because of the same interactions, we begin to think people care about and notice us more than they actually do. And three, unfortunately, we seem to think we know people because of the content they choose to put online.

Social media platforms are designed to be visual, virtual and carefully curated. There are some people who dump 42 near similar photos in one post but those are usually only unclejis and auntiejis. Most of us rethink, clip, pull, tug, filter and enhance our photos, videos and words online. No one knows better than we do that The Us online is not The Us offline. Yet we think we know people based solely on their online content. Why? I don’t know. Maybe social media also makes us more myopic and self-centred yet audaciously confident than ever before.

Society has always put people in boxes. Or tried to put people in boxes. Even some sociologists I know who would fight you over how they do not do this, in fact, do. Human beings wear many faces. Some people wear more faces than others. Not even for malicious or sad reasons. Sometimes, masks are simply necessary. Because they make social interactions possible. And sometimes certain faces are the only ways that the other person will be able to understand them.

One day when the wearer decides that the masks are getting too heavy and they take it off, the audience gasps. Why do we never accept that we don’t know people as well as we think we do? Especially based off of social media content. Or based off of situations far removed from their natural habitat, like on vacations, or church, or professional environments, which demand very specific sets of masks.

So confident to think we know God’s first name because we’ve sung this song for forever. Never knowing or conceiving of the possibility that we might have misheard a hymn. 

Crazy. No?

There are other variants of the God joke. Another favourite of mine is where Forrest Gump goes to heaven and St Peter asked him what God’s name was. And he replied “Howard/Harold” because of the line “Our Father in Heaven, Howard/Harold be thy name…” 

I just thought of the Andy one because Jim Reeves’ version of the hymn is amazingly soothing to listen to, especially on an empty country road, as the sun sets in the west, when you’re feeling down and low, because you’re missing your family and friends, because you’re moving further away from home for the umpteenth time, unhappy and melancholy, to a village where you have no real friends, and God is your only solace.