I left this alone for a few days after I wrote it. Often this practice will result in a shorter post. This time ... it doubled in length. Sigh ... again, you know where I live, read it in parts and pieces. Just please do read it and leave me your thoughts. I don't know ... can you follow these ideas? Does it make the smallest amount of sense?

Well ... without further hemming and hawing I present the answer to Atypical's Interview Question #1.

1. Biblically speaking, who are your favorite historical figures from both the Old and New Testaments and why?

I'm going to mess with this a little. (Surprise! :~) I think that by historical you meant people with skin on that have an earthly history that is not Divine in nature. But I'm going to say God and Jesus. Why? Well as you know, I've been reading through the Bible in chunks at a time. Sometimes I go faster than others. Sometimes I get bogged down. But in reading the Bible in that manner, it has become like reading an incredible love story -- the original epic version.

In the Old Testament, where I am still reading, I am so moved by the compassion that God shows over and over to individuals, nations, and the world. I have been required by the story to re-examine the concepts of God that I carry around in the back of my mind. There are concepts that are passed down to us through the attitudes and assumptions the culture around us. These are what I find myself re-examining. I am one of the fortunate few who has actually been exposed to solid teaching all of my life. I am, most gratefully, not having to re-examine that.

One cultural assumption is that we, as humans, are either unwittingly channeling God or Satan.

It's something that fits right in there with the parental attitude of our culture that almost everything our children do is the direct result of some other influence. We make excuses for them and dismiss them in the same breath because of this attitude.

We excuse our children's poor choices. And, we deny, to their faces, that they could possibly be creative enough to have created the concept leading to the event nor even added an over-the-top embellishment to the original idea.

Horribly, in the same vein, unwittingly we often give credit to someone else for our children's good and even great ideas.

But back to this concept of channeling ... It also robs us of three things. First, we escape our responsibility to fully participate in life by actively applying our own abilities as creators without excuse, without reservation. We are robbed of the satisfaction of our own creations both completed and completed well.

Second, it steals away our own risk and ultimately our joy in the creative process. Risk is undeniably exhilarating and motivating -- a few forerunners of joy.

Third, it ignores God's call to us to join Him in using our creative abilities to impact others.

And, the precursor to all of these: It is clear God expects us to tend to our abilities and creativity as one tends to crops in ways that increase the harvest ... or in the same way that puppies are protected and groomed as they grow into working dogs, helping herd cattle or assist people who are physically challenged. But we humans want paradise now and tend to just let the weeds grow and our creative pups run wild and untended and undisciplined.

No, I have not wandered not off-topic.

If we assume that we are just channeling -- Then we wander about with the posture someone who is just waiting for a responsibility to drop on our shoulders like a heavy rucksack -- an obligation to assume.

When we wait for obligation to fall upon us, we miss out on daily opportunities to actively engage with God and take risks with God by being creatively, proactively engaged. We miss out on opportunities to be involved in the process of teaching others, or creating a safe haven for our children, or ... simply in creating a small piece of art that makes someone start to wonder about this or that aspect of God or creation ... well, ya know the list is endless.

Basically, we turn our days into mundane lists of chores and routines and often seek out, or fall into, mindlessness ...

(An aside for atypical and me: In light of our confessions about waiting for large chunks of time and what I just wrote ... I find myself wondering, what would happen if we believed God could allow us to create or nourish our creativity in those little five or ten minute chunks that we dismiss as insignificant? Just a wondering ...)

Moreover, if we are just channeling, then are we not just puppets or pawns to be moved about in some game? That idea could carry an entire blog. So we'll just leave it sharing all of the same steps of devastation that results in waiting for the rucksack of obligation to fall on us: Denying our responsibility to make choices, running from risk that requires negotiating and intense interaction with God, ignoring God's calling ... beckoning.

Puppets do not make choices. They do not beg, plead, and bargain with their master. They will never ever understand the heart-pull of a quiet call from their father. Puppets have no part in their own development or the development of the puppets around them.

In other words ... when we wait for the rucksuck to land with a demand on our creativity OR we play the part of a puppet ... we are searching for Paradise Lost. We are longing for the days when none of this was hard ... when we were children ... before the loss of innocence.

So now you are bound to be wondering where I am wandering to ...

When I read the love story unfolding in the Bible, I do not see God looking for the dully responsible. (Oh and heaven help the dutifully responsible!) Nor is He looking for the marionettes.

I see God daring us to enter into the process with Him. Over and over He gave the Israelites victories ... but these victories required that they show up and participate in some manner. If they refused to show up, the victory did not happen. (Although, at this moment, I cannot remember a time when they refused after the victory was promised.)

Also consider, over and over God actually says "When my children mess up, if they will just turn to me and admit it and call out to me, I will have compassion on them. I will heal them." He does not say, "IF they mess up ..." He says, "When." (Well, and let's also not confuse healing with paradise.)

In the New Testament, Jesus demonstrated, with skin on, God's compassion and tenderness. He also demonstrated God's persistence and willingness to judge. (Oh yes, Jesus did judge and judge with harsh straightforward words.)

Jesus also commanded the believers to go out and be salt and light, and of course to use our resources and capabilities. Paul, when he went out, he did not always know which way to go. He would start out in one direction and find the way blocked ... in fact there was one point where He was blocked three or four times before he found his way. God did not channel through Paul. If He had been channeling, Paul would Not have had to use his own energies and creativity to discern the correct path.

Alright, to the point ...

God and Jesus are my favorite historical characters because they are not afraid of me. They are not afraid to ask me to be creative in ways that might mess with "the plan."

They do not dismiss my choices. They encourage me to make choice after choice. They do not dismiss my creativity. The call me to apply my creativity, to tend to it, cultivate it ... and join them in creating small reflections of them and them in my life.

I am free to read of their love for others and believe that they have this same love for me. In fact, they dare me to believe this. They dare me to tell others of God's incredible love and compassion.

They dare me to ACT on my belief in my freedom and their love and compassion. They dare me to hope. They dare me to engage in the process. And, they dare me to believe that I can enter into a slight understanding of God's grief.

Sigh ... This all probably sounds perfectly mad. But the best love stories always involve a passion that walks to the edge of sanity, yells at it to get out of the way, and plunges forward in pursuit.

How can I favorite anyone else in the light of the Divine's incredible, passionate pursuit of me and the best things in me?