May the God of your choice bless and keep you. I respect Him as

Hear now the voice of Kinky Friedman, troubadour of wit and satirist of life, who once said: “May the God of your choice bless and keep you. I respect Him as long as He does not circumcise me anymore.” At first hearing, laughter rises, for it is spoken in jest. Yet beneath the jest lies a river of meaning: a meditation on freedom of faith, the burdens of tradition, and the human yearning for divine blessing without the weight of unnecessary pain. In his humor, Friedman offers wisdom, for the ancients themselves often clothed truth in riddles, lest it cut too sharply.

The first part of his words—“May the God of your choice bless and keep you”—is a hymn to liberty. He proclaims that each person may choose the image of the divine that guides them, and that all such choices deserve respect. Unlike the kings and priests of old who demanded allegiance to one god and punished the worship of another, Friedman’s blessing is free of coercion. It carries the spirit of a democracy of faith, where belief is a personal journey, and where blessing is wished upon all, regardless of creed. Here speaks the wisdom of tolerance, a value fought for through centuries of persecution and war.

Yet in the second part of his jest—“I respect Him as long as He does not circumcise me anymore”—he turns laughter into a gentle rebellion. For here is the eternal tension between faith and ritual, between what uplifts the spirit and what wounds the flesh. Friedman reminds us that religion, in its zeal, has often demanded practices that cause pain in the name of devotion. His words echo not against the ritual alone, but against all traditions that burden the body or spirit when they no longer serve the heart of faith. It is the protest of the believer who seeks God’s blessing without unnecessary chains.

History offers us many examples of this struggle between faith and freedom. Recall the time of Martin Luther, who in the sixteenth century challenged the rituals and demands of the church. The people had been told that salvation required payment, ritual, and obedience to authority. Yet Luther’s cry was that faith itself was enough, that the soul stood before God without the mediation of human institutions. In this, as in Friedman’s jest, there was both humor and defiance—a refusal to accept that devotion must always be joined with suffering imposed by men.

The lesson here is twofold. First, respect the freedom of belief in others, for each heart must walk its own path to the divine. Do not demand that your neighbor’s faith be shaped by your own, but instead bless them as they follow their way. Second, guard your spirit against traditions that no longer bring meaning, and have the courage to separate the eternal truth from the trappings of ritual. For faith that harms is not faith fulfilled, but faith distorted.

O children of tomorrow, take this teaching to heart: seek always a balance between reverence and reason, between devotion and dignity. Do not mock the sincere belief of others, but also do not surrender your soul to practices that crush your joy. Let your worship be filled with freedom, and let your rituals be born of meaning, not of fear. In this way, the God of your choice will indeed bless and keep you—not through coercion, but through love.

Thus, in Friedman’s playful saying, humor becomes wisdom. His jest is a lamp that guides us: honor the divine, cherish your freedom, and laugh even at the weight of tradition when it grows too heavy. For laughter, too, is sacred—it lightens the burdens of faith and reminds us that even in devotion, we are still human. And so may the God of your choice bless and keep you, not with pain, but with joy, with freedom, and with peace.