Being the Supreme Benevolent Overlord

When my daughter and son-in-law announced that they were pregnant with their first child, my first grandchild, I had no idea how, and how much, it would change my life. And no, I’m sure you don’t know what I’m talking about. While I was very happy for them and for us, generally speaking, I don’t become demonstrably excited about such news because, quite frankly, my wife demonstrates more than enough excitement for both of us.

You see, as far as I was concerned, my responsibilities in this process were limited to being a supportive spectator and funding my wife’s insatiable need to spoil. Granted, it wasn’t a glamorous role, but who needs glamor? I’d already paid my dues and done my time, raising four kids. This time, all the headaches were somebody else’s, not mine. This time, it was their turn. The great thing about being a grandparent is that you’ve got no responsibilities. It’s all volunteer work. You do what you can or what you want, and the rest of the time you get to say, “Not. My. Problem.”

That fantasy lasted all of about 30 seconds, as my daughter informed us immediately that we needed to choose our grandparent names. First of all, it was totally unfair, because no one had informed me that I was supposed to have done homework prior that evening’s meal. Secondly, this had to be something invented by millennials, and therefore not enforceable upon those of us from prior generations. My objections were promptly and soundly overruled. “No, Daddy, you need to choose.” And the tone of voice quite clearly implied, “Now.”

Fine. I’ll just go with the default. Those were perfectly accptable when I was a kid, and everyone managed to survive unharmed. Sure, my kids had the luxury of having Grandpa and Grandma on my wife’s side, and Nonno and Nonna on mine, but that’s only because my parents lived in Italy, and those are the Italian words for Grandpa and Grandma. I really saw no reason to complicate things further than that. Besides, all the nicknames other grandparents I knew had were given them by their grandchildren — they didn’t come up with them themselves. Like our friend Tammie, for example, who is known as Garbomb because that’s what came out when her first granddaughter tried to say, “Grandma.”

That’s when I found out there were rules. I couldn’t use the default because my son-in-law’s parents had already claimed them (the lucky devils) and duplication of grandparent names isn’t allowed. Well that’s bogus, I muttered. After all, my grandparents were always Grandpa and Grandma — on both sides. Nobody got confused or offended, and no space-time continuums had been destroyed. Except maybe they had, because we were now clearly living in a different world from the one I grew up in.

My wife wasn’t helping much either. She had already decided a while ago that she wanted to be called Nana. Perfect. Way to be the teacher’s pet, dear. I, on the other hand, had nothing. I had no ideas, and I cared even less. I thought about stealing “Garbomb” but I dared not risk getting flagged again for illegal procedure.

Then, out of nowhere, it came to me. It was pure genius. This would teach my daughter to not back me into such a corner. With a wry grin, I said, “You want to know what I want to be called? I want to be called, ‘Supreme Benevolent Overlord.'” I can’t say what inspired that thought other than sometimes brilliant creativity spontaneously errupts from me. It’s a gift.

It was my daughter’s turn to protest, while the rest of the table errupted with a combination of groans and laughter. Her brothers could not help but crack jokes about how Supreme Benevolent Overlord would get abbreviated to SBO and then with our family’s tendencies towards dsylexia get perverted into something a bit more vulgar. They found the idea of a toddler teetering on the edge of swearing everytime he saw me extremely hilarious. My daughter, however, was not so amused. “Come on, Daddy! You can’t be serious!”

“Dead serious. You asked, and that’s my answer. Supreme Benevolent Overlord.”

“Well, I refuse to teach that to my child. It will never stick,” she retorted.

“Oh yes, it will. You wait and see. It will go down in family lore and live forever. For generations after I am gone they will be talking about the Supreme Benevolent Overlord.” I was already loving the sound of my new moniker and was intent on seeing it was repeated as much as possible. “I may even have it etched on my tombstone.”

And so it began. My self-description was so outlandish that it had to be repeated. Inevitably it started with, “You won’t believe what Dad said …” and every time the name was spoken it became further entrenched. I used it at every opportunity I could. I even adopted it as my gamer tag. Unsurprisingly, it was available universally. What was surprising was the number of platforms that allowed enough characters — all glorious 25 of them — for me to spell it out completely. Every time it was mentioned my daughter’s eyes seem to roll back a little further in her head, and with every eye roll my legacy was being more firmly established.

Eventually the day came when my grandson was about two, that his mother was in the hallway outside his bedroom while his daddy knelt beside his bed with him for bedtime prayers, prompting him with the people he should pray for. One by one, the little boy attempted to mimic what his father said to the best of his ability. “Bless Gigi and Papi.” She smiled at the adorableness of it all as her husband continued. “And bless Nana,” followed by the quiet echo, “and Nana.”

“And bless the Supreme Benevolent Overlord.” My son-in-law couldn’t help but giggle a little bit as he slowed to ennunciate each of the nine syllables clearly. Yeah right — like that was going to help the poor kid. My daughter threw her arms up in disgusted surrender. It was going to stick. I had won.

Then my wife decided it was time to redo the Christmas stockings. She didn’t like the ununiform hodgepodge of stockings we had collected over the years which clashed with her color-coordinated, thematic living room decorations, so when she had the opportunity to stockpile enough of the same stocking for everyone in the family now plus a generous allotment for potential future family members, she took it. The new stockings would be identified by wooden Christmas bulb ornaments with the name of the owner written on it. The responsibility of writing the names on all the ornaments was delegated to me. When she handed me the one for my stocking, she narrowed her eyes and declared firmly, “You will NOT write ‘Supreme Benevolent Overlord’ on that, so pick something else.”

I enjoy living, so I chose to not debate the issue, but that unfortunately put me back in the same predicament as before. This time, however, I had a little more to work with. I figured the closest thing we have on earth to a Supreme Benevolent Overlord is the pope, so, since I spent my teenage years in Italy and my parents lived there for 30 years, I wrote Papa, the Italian word for pope, on my stocking ornament.

So that’s what my grandchildren call me. However, make no mistake: when they are old enough, I will explain to them that the true interpretation of Papa is Supreme Benevolent Overlord, which I am sure will be accompanied by more eye rolls from their mother.

Perhaps now you might understand why I took note of the election of Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost this week to the papacy as Pope Leo XIV. We actually don’t have a whole lot in common, beginning with the fact that he is Catholic and I am not. He was elected by at least a two-thirds majority of the 133 cardinals in the conclave, whereas I am self-appointed. According to recent estimates, he has 1.38 billion followers worldwide, while I have just three grandchildren. One article I read proclaimed him to be one of the two most influential Americans in the world (the other being Donald Trump), but I’m just a no-name blogger. That said, while both Pope Leo and I may think that we can stake a convincing claim to the title of Supreme Benevolent Overlord, the one thing we have in common is that we really can’t. That title belongs one person, and one person only: God.

In Luke 18, a guy we’ve come to identify as the rich young ruler asked Jesus, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” to which Jesus promptly replies, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone” (Luke 18:19). Let that sink in for a moment. No one is good except God alone. That Jesus said it is significant enough, but the same statement was echoed by the Apostle Paul (Romans 3:12) who was quoting David (Psalm 14:3). There is none who do good, not even one. Zip. Zilch. Nada. And especially not a self-designated Papa.

But that’s not what we believe, is it? In fact, most of the time we flip it the other way around. Pope Leo XIV must be a good man, right? I mean, how can he not be? Certainly no one can go from altar boy in Chicago to bishop to cardinal to pope without being good. He was even a missionary in Peru and wanted to identify with the people there so much that he became a naturalized Peruvian citizen. Surely only a good man would do something like that. After all, I never heard of Osama bin Laden doing anything like that.

And God? Certainly He can’t be good, because He lets people like bin Laden roam the earth and leave a destructive wave of evil in their wake. Surely if He were good He wouldn’t allow such people to even exist, much less thrive.

The truth is that just because a man is elected pope doesn’t mean he’s good. Of the 267 men over the course of history who ascended to the papacy there were many who were anything and everything but good. I’m not trying to hold Pope Leo accountable for the sins of his predecessors. I don’t know a lot about him, and I definitely don’t know him personally. But I do know that you don’t get to be pope without practicing Catholicism, and you don’t practice Catholicism for sixty years without going to confession at least once or twice. Going to confession is an admission of guilt, that you’ve sinned, and the Bible says that only one sin is enough to disqualify you from being good. So even if he’s the best Catholic there ever was, he’s still not good — not according to the Scriptures.

It’s astounding to me that despite all the evidence to the contrary we insist on affirming the goodness of man and ascribing evil to God. Even the rich young ruler, who started by declaring Jesus to be good, ultimately proved that he didn’t really think He was, because he walked away sad, unwilling to do what Jesus asked him to do. That’s the exact same thing you and I do when we choose to disobey: we say we believe He is good, but when asked to abbandon everything we have to follow him we recoil, because we’re afraid that if we do He will abbandon us, leaving us high and dry and empty-handed. People who do that kind of thing are liars, frauds, and deceivers; but the Bible says it is impossible for God to lie (Hebrews 6:18). Do you see the disconnect?

It’s one thing for me to kid around with my family about being the Supreme Benevolent Overlord — it’s something completely different to actually believe that’s who and what I am. When my world starts falling apart and I feel like I’m losing hope, inevitably it’s because I’ve stopped believing that God is good and have tried to take matters into my own hands because I don’t trust Him to do what’s genuinely best for me. When that happens, I have to reset my thinking, allow Him to challenge and alter my definition of what good is, and rest in the confidence that He is a much better Supreme Benevolent Overlord than I could ever be.