A good deal is known about Lincoln’s life, thanks to the “magnitude of his greatness”, which has inspired thousands of scholars, poets, and biographers. People write about Old Abe all the time and some, like Sandburg, bring Lincoln’s exploits to life all the way from his boyhood to his man-hood in the first of his multi-volume biography.
Even so, there are some intriguing and perplexing episodes in Lincoln’s life not so generally well-known, such as the time Lincoln and the Almighty met.
The Almighty made the first move, really; sitting back one day, he slipped into a reflective mood and became enthralled with one of his prized creations, man. Looking about at all the continents, he was amazed at the great diversity of types and personalities that populated the earth.
While most humans had good hearts and were kind, many had some very serious faults and terrible vices, too. He got to wondering about whether he’d created any perfect humans and concluded that he hadn’t, but when he saw Lincoln it gave him pause.
This man was different from the others, that much was clear. Being in a playful mood, the Almighty was struck with a fanciful thought—he would go meet Lincoln in person down on earth and challenge him to a competition . . . promising himself not to use any of his supernatural powers.
Lincoln was out working in a field of wheat with a scythe when the dark shadow of a large man suddenly appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. Lincoln kept working, flailing his scythe rhythmically back and forth while watching the stalks of wheat fall where the scythe had sliced them to the ground. The Almighty made a note of this in his little notebook—“Lincoln calm and composed; not surprised by anything . . .”
“Hello!” the Almighty called out. “Need help?”
Lincoln glanced up at the stranger and replied: “Well, I reckon I can do it all by myself if I had to, but the work would get done a lot faster with two men working instead of one. The problem is, I’ve only got one scythe . . .” The Almighty looked around a bit and then spotted a spare scythe just a-waiting for him to pick it up! The two men worked alongside one another for the rest of the day during the full heat of a hot afternoon.
The Almighty was awkward and clumsy at first, not being used to such hard labor. After awhile, though, the Almighty found the rhythm and strength to his liking and began to feel like he was the strongest and fastest field worker there ever was! But when he glanced up, he saw that Lincoln had done even more!
“Well, it’s time for me to introduce myself. I’m the Almighty and I’ve come to earth to challenge you to a competition.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes sir, it is.”
“Well, what kind of competition?”
The Almighty scratched his head awhile and said: “work, eat, wrestle, and talk.”
“What for?”
“To understand what makes a human being good or bad.”
“Why me?”
“I’ll answer that one later, if you don’t mind.”
“How do I know you won’t use a trick to win?”
The Almighty felt his cheeks tingle and he was about to become huffy when he cooled down enough to answer simply: “I give you my word.”
“When do we start?”
“We already did . . . when it comes to work, there’s no man can head you!”
“That’s good enough for me. What’s next?”
“Eating.”
“Eating?”
“That’s right: eating! Please permit me a little magic trick here if you don’t mind. It will not affect the outcome of the contest itself. I shall eat as a normal man eats.”
Lincoln nodded assent and the Almighty made a whoosh with his left arm and lo and behold there was a picnic lunch spread before them! There was the red and blue plaid blanket, and not one but four picnic baskets! Each basket was crammed full of the most delicious foods, like fried chicken and corn on the cob and potato salad and breads and jams and too many other things to mention them all. Before they began, the Almighty asked Lincoln a question:
“How much do you weigh, sir?”
“180 pounds dripping wet.”
“I see”, said the Almighty, “then I shall adjust my own weight accordingly. And how tall are you?”
“Six feet four inches in my stocking feet from my toes to my hair.”
“Why, you’ll positively skinny. I don’t see how in the world you will be able to keep up with me!”
“Well, you just let me have a crack at that corn and fried chicken and we’ll see who needs help keeping up!”
“All right then!” and both men seated themselves cross-legged on the ground. The Almighty looked at Lincoln: “And now, sir, are you ready to begin?”
“I sure am! I’ve been working all day and I’m as hungry as a bear in springtime!”
They lay to that scrumptious picnic dinner like two men starved for a fortnight. They started off kind of slow so as to savor the delicious nature of each bite but pretty soon both picked up speed. They started gobbling down chicken legs and potato salad and corn faster and faster, and their discarded bones and corn cobs started flying backwards over their shoulders and every which way.
Lincoln had seldom ever had a chance to eat as much as he could and he wasn’t about to waste this one and only chance. Though normally he showed modesty at the table with victuals and company, he could really let himself go to town when he had the mind. He wasn’t worried that much about who would win the eating contest; he knew he would. But he didn’t care if he did or didn’t in the long run. He just kept a-concentrating on the food and filling himself up.
Finally he began to feel full and like he might bust something if he kept going so he began to slow down until he had to admit to himself if he ate another fried chicken leg he would explode. With a satisfied sigh he put the next chicken leg back in the basket and lay back on the blanket to look up at the blue of the sky.
He was daydreaming like that when suddenly he remembered! He sat bolt-upright and looked for the Almighty and there he was, still sitting cross-legged and still eating! Well, Lincoln had never seen anything like it and a wave of shame flushed across his brow and face to see the Almighty out-eating him by such a wide margin of victory!
“Well I declare!” said Lincoln, “never thought I’d see the day!”
The Almighty paused for a second and glanced at Lincoln: “You mean you are done eating already and you are admitting defeat? That I ate more than you?”
“That I am! There ain’t no man who can match the Almighty when he’s hungry!”
“Well then”, said the Almighty, “since you won the work competition and I the eating contest, we are tied one win apiece.”
“What’s next?”
“Wrestling!”
“That’s fine by me! Gotta warn you, I can out-wrestle most any man alive!”
Lincoln got hold of the Almighty around the shoulders and pulled him down toward the ground, put his boots up on the Almighty’s chest and flipped him over his head and slung him pell-mell and headfirst into a patch of thick entangling blackberry briars which got the Almighty scratched up pretty damn good, let me tell you! He came crawling back out on hands and knees, regained his feet, and came a-flying at Lincoln with fire in his eyes.
The Almighty was all worked up a-plenty now and he grabbed Lincoln by the arms and swung him around in three big circles before letting him go and Lincoln flew off across the field 30 or 40 yards way up high in the air until he landed right smack dab in the middle of a haystack which luckily cushioned his landing some. He staggered to his feet, dizzy as all get out, sneezing up a storm and shaking dry straw out of his hair and beard. He took three or four steps, fell down, got up, fell down again, and then laughed a long deep belly laugh and exclaimed:
“Well, I reckon you won that one . . . but how can I be sure you didn’t use a tiny little bit of your extra powers just then? Felt kind of like I was a bird flying through the air a mighty long time!”
The Almighty chuckled and scratched his beard: “Hhhmmm, well you got a good point there, that’s for sure. What say we called it a draw?”
I’d be satisfied with that if you are!”
The score was now even: one win apiece, one draw. There was one area left: talk.
The Almighty spoke first:
“What I’d like to know, when you gave that speech at Gettysburg, were the words all your own, or were you inspired by a higher power—by me?”
“Don’t rightly know. I think of the words as my own but I can’t rightly say where those words came from.”
There was a pause while both mulled over this answer. Then Lincoln spoke again:
“And I’ve got a question for you: at the end, when I die, am I going to see you?”
The Almighty was silent a long time, struggling with his thoughts and how to reply, knowing how Lincoln was to die and how it was sudden and from behind at the hands of a treacherous little coward but the Almighty was not willing to reveal his foreknowledge to the man standing before him. Lincoln ended the awkward pause with a shrug of his shoulders and a simple “I thought so!”
The two men stood and faced one another. The Almighty grabbed Lincoln’s hand and they shook hands heartily, the type of great big strong handshake that only two men and two friends can really know the why and wherefore. The Almighty then was ready to depart, leaving Lincoln in the field of wheat as before, each to his own destiny . . .
This little known episode was brought to light recently by a friend of mine and is hereby introduced to the reader for the reader’s edification and greater understanding of Abraham Lincoln and the kind of man he was, as seen through the eyes of the Almighty.
Perhaps when reading Lincoln’s words at some future point in time, the reader will feel free to study the full import of Lincoln’s meaning when he expressed this thought:
“The Almighty has reasons of his own . . . if it is necessary that every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, so shall it be written, as it was 3,000 years ago, that the judgment of the Lord is altogether righteous and just.”
On April 14, 1865 Abraham Lincoln was shot from behind and lost consciousness, which he never regained, but died early the next morning.
Meanwhile, the Almighty had resumed his place, feeling very satisfied with what he’d done and seen.
“Well, I’ve made a lot of odd creatures in my time, none stranger than people, who come in all shapes and sizes and goodnesses and wickednesses, too.
“After meeting Lincoln, I think I can honestly say I made at least one perfect man . . . no, check that, not a perfect man but one who was deep and wise and plain and humble and as happy to be around simple folk as with the high and mighty. That was a man and a man among men and among my best work, surely!”
“Who won the competition?” he heard one of the angels ask. The Almighty thought about it a while before answering and then smiled:
“No one” he said. “It was a draw.”
“He was equal to you?”
“Not exactly equal but . . . well, yes, I guess he was!”
Thus ended the competition between Abraham Lincoln and the Almighty, both sides recording it as a draw–and thus it has been and always will be so remembered, down all the long hard quiet dusky corridors of time yet to be.
