Subject: An interview with God
Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 05:58:44 EDT
From: Sandra S Stark
To: [Birds of a Feather]
An interview with God
I had a dream, I had an interview with God.
"Come in," God said to me,
"So, you would like to interview Me?"
"If you have the time," I said.
God smiled and said:
"My time is called eternity and is enough to do everything; What
questions
do you have in mind to ask me?"
"None that are new to you. What's the one thing that surprises you most about mankind?"
God answered: "That they get bored of being children, are in a rush to grow up, and then long to be children again.
That they lose their health to make money and then lose their money to restore their health. That by thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present, such that they live neither for the present nor the future.
That they live as if they will never die, and they die as if they had never lived..."
God's hands took mine and we were silent. After a long period, I said, "May I ask you another question?" "As a Parent, what would you ask your children to do?"
God replied with a smile: "To learn that they cannot make anyone love them. What they can do is to let themselves be loved. To learn that it takes years to build trust, and a few seconds to destroy it.
To learn that what is most valuable is not what they have in their lives, but who they have in their lives.
To learn that it is not good to compare themselves to others. There will be others better or worse than they are.
To learn that a rich person is not one who has the most, but is one who needs the least.
To learn that they should control their attitudes, otherwise their attitudes will control them. To learn that it only takes a few seconds to open profound wounds in persons we love, and that it takes many years to heal them.
To learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness.
To learn that there are persons that love them dearly, but simply do not know how to show their feelings.
To learn that money can buy everything but happiness.
To learn that while at times they may be entitled to be upset, that does not give them the right to upset those around them.
To learn that great dreams do not require great wings, but a landing gear to achieve.
To learn that true friends are scarce, he/she who has found one has found a true treasure.
To learn that it is not always enough that they be forgiven by others, but that they forgive themselves.
To learn that they are masters of what they keep to themselves and slaves of what they say.
To learn that they shall reap what they plant; if they plant gossip they will harvest intrigues, if they plant love they will harvest happiness.
To learn that true happiness is not to achieve their goals but to learn to be satisfied with what they have already achieved.
To learn that happiness is a decision. They decide to be happy with what they are and have, or die from envy and jealousy of what they lack.
To learn that two people can look at the same thing and see something totally different. To learn that those who are honest with themselves without considering the consequences go far in life.
To learn that even though they may think they have nothing to give, when a friend cries with them, they find the strength to appease the pain.
To learn that by trying to hold on to loved ones, they very quickly push them away; and by letting go of those they love, they will be side by side forever.
Subject: FW: An interview with God
Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 09:08:09 -0400
From: Bruce Wheeler
To: [numerous people]
CC: UUCF Chat
Something to think about.
[Sandra S Stark, 26 Sep 1999 is quoted in full here.]
Subject: Re: An interview with God
Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 20:35:21 -0400
From: Alex Machina
To: Birds of a Feather
Sandra S Stark wrote:
< Birds of a Feather
<
<
An interview with God
<
< I had a dream, I had an interview with God.
< "Come in," God said to me,
< "So, you would like to interview Me?"
<
The above was published by "On The Move Ministries"
(http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/3397/sept99.htm)
[This link was found to be dead on 12/27/99.]
except that their version omitted everything starting with:
=========
To learn that they are masters of what they keep to themselves and slaves of what they say.
To learn that they shall reap what they plant; if they plant gossip they will harvest intrigues, if they plant love they will harvest happiness.
..... etc, etc, until the end
And ended with:
And then God held both my hands and looked into my eyes and said quietly, “People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
============
Here's one that's particularly clever, albeit a bit long. I love it how people make this stuff up and then attribute it to "God".
An Interview with God
By David Cornfield, Creative Edge Associates
Good evening folks. This is Adam, your roving reporter, coming to you live from our mobile broadcast studios at our new location just outside the gates of the Garden of Eden. Tonight, a documentary special on Creativity featuring an exclusive interview with the world's foremost authority on creativity, our Creator. Thank you for coming Lord.
Thank you for asking me, Adam. I've been meaning to have a little talk with you about creativity and now is as good a time as any.
Is there a problem?
The problem is that you are falling into habits and routines.
What's wrong with habits and routines?
Habits and routines have their place, Adam, but they aren't very creative. I need you to be creative.
You ... need me ... to be creative. I am flabbergasted. I didn't know you needed anything. That's why I don't give you gifts. What do you give someone who has created everything? But seriously, why does the Creator need me to be creative? Isn't that like taking coals to Newcastle?
Adam, did it ever occur to you to ask yourself why I went to all the trouble of creating you? I didn't just wake up one morning and say to myself, "Hmm, nothing to do today. Why don't I create a universe." No, I made the universe because I needed a universe. I made you because I needed you. And what I need most from you is creative responses, not routines.
Frankly, I never did understand why you made me. I thought maybe you got bored and took up creating the universe as a hobby, something to pass the time. Next year, who knows, you might drop creating universes, take up stamp collecting, and there I would be gathering dust at the back of your closet. That you might need me didn't even cross my mind.
Well, I do need you. The creating I do is motivated by my desire to be known through my works, and I can't be known without a creature who has the capacity to know me. This means I need a creature like you, a being separate from myself who is self-aware and who can appreciate my works because he or she knows from first hand experience the pain and the risk involved in creating.
What can you tell us about this desire of yours to be known?
It's a long story, and much of it is conjecture. It requires us to go back to what was going on In The Beginning and Before The Beginning, and, not even I, know for sure what, if anything, went on before Creation. If there was a time before Creation, it was before my time, or any time for that matter. What I suspect however is that the whole process of Creation that happened In The Beginning was rooted in a desire to be known.
How do you reach that conclusion?
Well, think of it this way. The very existence of a Creation story presumes a beginning to the everyday world as we know it, and begs the question of what was going on before this beginning. The world as we know it is a created world, a world characterized by its state of "thingness" - that is, it is made up of objects and entities having some degree of form with some degree of stability over time and space. If this state of thingness has a beginning, presumably that beginning is preceded by a state of no-thingness, a Void with no stable form, no time and no space.
What can we say about the Void? All we know about it is that it is an undifferentiated formless state of being that preceded Creation. Since Creation arose out of the Void. we know that it is a Fertile Void as opposed to an empty or sterile Void. Otherwise, nothing about this state is knowable because of its lack of differentiation. It is unknowable because there is no in-form-ation and therefore no-thing to know about it.
Why are we talking about a Void that can't be talked about? Can we get back to your desire to be known?.
Bear with me Adam. I'm getting there. If there is, or was, an unknowable Fertile Void prior to or underlying the created world, then there must also be a process whereby the unknowable is transformed into the world that can be known. That much is clear. The question then becomes what motivates the transformation from unknowable to knowable? The best answer I can come up with is that within the Fertile Void there was a desire to be known.
Does that mean that making the unknowable knowable is, or was, the purpose of Creation?
It certainly was one purpose of Creation. I reserve my right to reveal other purposes of Creation in future epiphanies.
You know, there's something I've always wondered about, Lord. You made the earth, you made plants, you made animals, you made me and then you stopped. What happened to that desire to be known? Did you take one look at me and get discouraged?
The differentiation of the Fertile Void into a created world that can be known was an exercise in self knowledge. The creation of the world of things made me knowable. My desire was to be known. To be known required a Creature with the capacity to know its Creator. When I created you I finally had the self-conscious being I needed in order to be known. But I didn't know that and couldn't know it until I had created you. Of course, once I had created you,. I saw that it was good and I rested.
Are you telling me, after making such a fuss about eating that apple, that you needed us to be self-conscious?
I was wondering when you would figure that out. Yes Adam, it's embarrassing but true.
You were meant to become self-conscious by eating the apple, just as you were meant to have the memory of an unself-conscious paradise to yearn after once you were evicted from the garden.
Let's go back to you needing me to be self-conscious. I like that. It almost makes up for the guilt and fear I've been living in for snitching apples.
Let's recap. The whole process that occurred In The Beginning, including my emergence as the Creator, was initiated and driven by a desire within the Fertile Void to be known. My purpose in being the Creator was and is to help the Fertile Void be known by engaging in Creation. I created you to help me fulfill my own desire to be known, and you do that by participating in the creative process. As above, so below.
I don't get it. I understand your need for a self-conscious being to appreciate your works. You get to know your creativity when I reflect it back to you. But that's about YOUR creativity. How does MY being creative help you know yourself?
Your appreciation of my works is one of the ways I come to know my creativity, but appreciation from a non-participant is not enough. You were made in the image of the Creator. Of all my Creatures, you are the only one to possess free will and self-awareness. Of all my Creatures, you are the only one who can channel my creativity in a conscious manner. It is only when you learn what its like to stand in the place of the Creator by actually being creative, that you are in a position to fully appreciate my works. And there is a certain kind of awareness of my creativity that I can only experience when my creativity is channelled through your self-awareness.
Are you saying that I am on this earth to paint you a picture?
I would love it if you would paint me a picture, or write me a poem or dance me a dance. Those are pure expressions of creativity, they are one way for you to learn about and trust the flow of my creativity through you, and they are certainly a part of what I need from you. But you are being too simplistic. Your creativity goes beyond creativity for its own sake. You have an innate capacity for creative responsiveness to every moment of your life. Every conversation, every dream, every walk through a crowd demonstrates your ability to improvise creatively with words, images, movement. In a world that is constantly changing, surviving and thriving depend upon responding creatively to the evolving circumstances of your life. When you make do with automatic responses that are habitual and routine, when you are only creative when your routines become dysfunctional, you miss out on the richness of being fully responsive to each and every moment.
But that is too scary, too much hard work. What if I choke up and can't find a creative response?
Adam, if you are open, I will come through you. I am the muse, the creative wellspring, the abode of your genius. It is as though you are a tap leading into a reservoir that is brim full of water. When the tap is open, water flows. The tap doesn't have to make water. It only has to have the courage to stay open. If it opens, everyone receives the blessing of water. If it closes, the water stays in the reservoir.
If it's so easy, why do I need courage to stay open?
You need courage because you are channeling powerful forces. When the Creature creates, the boundaries between Creator and Creature become blurred. The illusion of separation between you and me begins to waiver. You become god-like, manifesting the Creator. I become embodied in you as the source of your creativity. Our oneness is re-membered, and in that re-membering there is both exultation and terror - the exultation of returning to paradise, the terror of losing individuality. To change our metaphor for a moment, allowing yourself to be taken by the full passion of the creative urge is like being the filament in a light bulb as the dimmer switch is turned up. There is heat. It burns. There is light. It dazzles. Will that slender wire withstand the voltage, or will it burst into a thousand molten fragments, extinguishing itself in a flash of blinding white light? It's scary stuff, full of wonder and dread - the real meaning of aw(e)ful.
All right. I understand why I might want to close down. How is it that I do that?
I can't even begin to catalogue all the different ways you close your tap. You can't channel my creativity when you have gone dead. You go dead by not breathing, by tightening your muscles, by engaging in addictive behaviours, by denying reality, by forgetting, by going to sleep .... I could go on and on. You refuse my creativity when your life becomes routinized and you won't try something new. You sabotage yourself when your inner critic yammers at you that you aren't good enough and you believe it.
When you shut the tap, you stifle your creativity, but you pay a price. You lose your enthusiasm (literally, a state of having theos or god within). You stop dreaming. You become bored and depressed.
How depressing.
Not just for you, Adam. For me too. My desire to be known in my creativity is not just a blip on my screen. It was and is the central motivation for the creation of this entire universe. Creation is not something I dabble in. Creation is not something that was over and done with when I created you. The Creation that took place In the Beginning was just a beginning. As time goes on I continue to evolve and complexify the world in the furtherance of my Creation. If I am to be known, my creativity needs to flow and to be known. I really do need you to be creative if I am to know my creativity. When you lose consciousness, so do I. When you close the tap, I can't flow through you and the water of my creativity stagnates in the reservoir.
Lord, I'm sorry to have to rush you, but we are almost out of time. Any last words?
Only this, Adam. I want to emphasize the importance of individual human creativity in the divine scheme. People tend to think of creativity as a dispensable luxury, as appropriate for children not grownups, as something frivolous, not to be taken seriously. I hope I have done something to dispel those notions, to help everyone understand the divine necessity of personally engaging in the creative process.
Thank you for joining us Lord. Tonight we have been in conversation with our Lord, God, King of the Universe. And of course, since the separation between us and our Creator is illusory, we have also been talking to ourselves. So thank you, everyone. On that note, I bid you adieu, with my best wishes for success in all your creative endeavours.
Subject: Re: An interview with God
Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 21:21:23 EDT
From: Sandra S Stark
To: [Birds of a Feather]
Alex......
Thanks for the additional input on An interview with God. I sent it as it was sent to me. I'm glad you added the source data. You're on the ball. God or no God, I think the statements are pertinent. I like the ending...............it fits.
Sandy
<< Birds of a Feather
<<
An interview with God
<<
<< I had a dream, I had an interview with God.
<< "Come in," God said to me,
<< "So, you would like to interview Me?"
<And ended with:
<
<And then God held both my hands and looked into my eyes and said
<quietly,
<“People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did,
<but
<people will never forget how you
<made them feel.”
Subject: Re: An interview with God
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 13:36:14 EDT
From: [Lin]
To: [Birds of a Feather]
Dear Ruminations:
In a message dated 09/26/1999 8:36:44 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [Alex Machina] writes:
<< Here's one that's particularly clever, albeit a bit long. I love it how people make this stuff up and then attribute it to "God".>>
Well, I'm going to go all metaphysical again.
Everything we know and experience in life is, in essence, through God. At least, through my personal God. My God is the whole of creation, everything that exists and can exist and has existed. Our biggest creative problem as people is just how little we see of the whole ... I don't know what to call it, so I'll have to explain how I visualize everything in our universe.
For those of you who have visited my mother (Lola) at home, and who haven't, she has a beautiful ivory ball hand carved in Hong Kong in her display cabinet. The ball consists of layers upon layers, circles within circles of individually carved surfaces. When resting on the stand, certain parts of the ball touch other parts and don't touch other parts. Whenever you move or touch the ball you change the relationship of all the parts to each other, but it will never be anything but a whole.
This is the world, our universe. All of our relationships touch the ball somehow, but we are specs existing on one tiny piece of it. We can illumine only a tiny portion of the whole, and sometimes if we work hard at it, we can shake the ball and change the relationships just a little bit. The connections and strands of connections in the ball are far more delicate than ivory, and can be forced out of true by such hatred as was exposed by the men who dragged a black man to death in Texas, and so many other things which happen.
Finally, this ball is us, our planet, plants, animals, churches, roads, the deserts, the seas and all life and non-life to be found. Thus it is also God, and God is us. Anything we attribute to God can be attributed to God because we are S/he and S/he is us.
<<Adam, if you are open, I will come through you. I am the muse, the creative wellspring, the abode of your genius. It is as though you are a tap leading into a reservoir that is brim full of water. When the tap is open, water flows. The tap doesn't have to make water. It only has to have the courage to stay open. If it opens, everyone receives the blessing of water. If it closes, the water stays in the reservoir. Our oneness is re-membered, and in that re-membering there is both exultation and terror - the exultation of returning to paradise, the terror of losing individuality.>>
Yes... accepting God is the terror of losing individuality. But everything in our universe leads to the belief that we are connected and similar in some mysterious way we do not understand. If not, why is it that Alcoholics Anonymous can be so effective for so many people who are so dissimilar in other ways? Why else would our experience of this addiction be so similar? How is it that so many of the great scientific discoveries of our time are made by several people (although the one who publishes first gets the credit)? There are so many examples that show us that we are not only individuals but part of a collective consciousness.
<<Thank you for joining us Lord. Tonight we have been in conversation with our Lord, God, King of the Universe. And of course, since the separation between us and our Creator is illusory, we have also been talking to ourselves. So thank you, everyone. On that note, I bid you adieu, with my best wishes for success in all your creative endeavours.>>
No need to add to that.
Lin