God, in all His glory, power emanating from Him, Christ and the Holy Spirit and He, one and endless, spoke to the others.
“I have an idea. I am in a creative mood and I have been contemplating just exactly what I want to create.” He paused. “I find I long for this creation I have in mind.”
The angels and the other spiritual creatures basked in the pure light that was YHWH, although that name for Him would come only with this creation He was planning. It’s use here was an indication of just how they worshiped him, how they loved him, how everything he created was whole and good when His created accorded him proper worship. Each listened with rapt attention.
“It’s a complicated but beautiful creation,” He said, “one with great detail. And the detail is in the structure.”
One of angels whispered out loud, “I love it when He is in this mood.”
The heavenly hosts agreed in one accord, a song of beautiful praise, for music, at least of a certain sort, was part of God’s plan even before He made time.
God smiled and began explaining.”
“ I am going to make a universe, He said. “Eventually, it will be peopled with creatures patterned after us.”
“A universe?” they asked, wondering at the word, which really meant they were wondering at the word, which really meant they were wondering at the spirit and the thought and idea of this thing called universe but mostly they found they were wondering at the creatures that Elohim had hinted would be in His image and the sentience that He might give them.
It took a while as He explained. It was a meticulous and wonderful plan. There would be a lot of creating and creation upon creation, that would create the universe, that would in turn produce galaxies and novas and suns and then eventually a small, lone blue planet inhabiting one infinitesimal corner of a spiral armed galaxy surrounded by billions of other stars and celestial bodies. In the end it would be all about his crowning glory, these creatures he had in mind. They would be given an intimacy with Him that was astounding. He told the heavenly host that He already loved each one of them, before they were even created, and knew their names and their paths and something called their hairs and he was jealous for them.
“Oh how He loves them,” the angels chorused.
The angles knew love. They knew it without need of explanation. It came from Him in waves. It always had. They had no recollection of a time when His love didn’t fill, well, everything. Just like now. And forever.
“But I am getting ahead of myself,” He said and even as He spoke, the creation began.
He started with an awful chaos, all dark and without form and as he talked, or breathed his spirit or thoughts into the void, or however the sentients might eventually explain it, time started and with a bang the structures he planned began .
“Magnificent.” said the vocal angel, as they all watched it enfold. The bang gave way to elements which then begat more complex elements.
“These will be needed for the creatures down the line,” He told them. “Wait till you see how! This is good. REAL GOOD.”
The beauty of this creation was in part in the elegance of His plan. God was creating, not in a linear fashion, although there was a bit of that, but through an intimate dance of redundancy and economy, kind of an over and over process.
“A little like an onion,” He told them and explained 12 billion years of linear time so they would know why he used the example of an onion.
“So, you are saying that a lot of what you are creating is structured in such a way that there are multiple layers of information that might all look like they are the same but aren’t? Or sometimes it might look like things are stretched out in a plodding and boringly sequential way, but they aren’t?” said one of the seraphim.
“Yes.” God’s voice boomed all around. Creatures He’d imagined appeared. The heavenly hosts noticed them as God pointed His finger, in a garden of great beauty and largess. The garden was populated by flowers and trees and bees and lizards. There were tiny things in the ground doing unseen maintenance.
“What are those things doing?” the angels asked.
“Remember the atoms?” He reminded them.
And as they told Him yes, they could see how he had used the atoms.
In the cells of each single living organism, he’d created a plan that a code would dictate life on the beautiful blue planet. Every organism had the same code but as each code was read differently, it would make a wasp or a porpoise, a baby or a mushroom.
It was brilliant really.
He’d even built in a plan for creation to change and adapt.
Praises were filling the heavens now, and flowing into the universe, because there was one of those now, and God was spending time with His creation. The creation couldn’t look upon him, but they were getting to know Him and the ways He’d planned to talk to them were unfolding.
“These creatures that you love especially,” one of the angels asked, “They have your image but they don’t really understand things above the natural, do they?” This was said in an incredulous tone, for it was impossible for an angel to imagine this.
“I am creating some of their minds to receive visions,” and as he explained, as He spoke, they saw a man, John on an island in the Mediterranean, who was with Christ when he became man, write down the vision God was giving him. He was old already, but wise. They watched as his revelation letter passed through time, written by hand over and over and copied and saved and read.
The angels loved God’s hand writ large like it was through these creatures he loved. He was such a consistent God.
“One day, two thousand years from this time, a man who loves me will tell a group of people about John’s letter. They will try to understand the vision I have sent.”
“Yes?!?” the angels chorused in a beautiful Psalm. “And what will happen?!?”
“The man will understand John’s vision in the way that I have created a lot of his world. He will study and he will think. He will understand my message like the layers of an onion. He will get a small hint that I like to create with valuable redundancy and economy. I even like to speak to my creation this way.”
“What will happen then.”
“Well, there will be a lot of people who will hear his thoughts. The man who loves me will pray that it will make a difference to those that hear as they seek to understand me.”
“And will it?” the angles asked, knowing the answer already, but loving God when he told them.
“Why yes, it will.” God said. “One of the people, it’s kind of funny. It’s a woman. When the man illustrates how I have used several words from John’s revelatkion to reiterate my plan, it’s going to remind her of something.”
“What?” they all said, as if they didn’t already know.
“She’s going to think of that code I made. It’s going to remind her of that. She’s going to spend some time appreciating the elegance of her Creator solely because of that. And she will understand me a bit better because of it.”
“And the man?” they asked?
“Aw well, I do love him, but he’s sort of hesitant to admit that he believes above-the-natural things. He likes to stick to facts.”
God looked around and and seeing Paul attentive, motioned him over.
“Paul, that man, he always admired you, you know. He’s studied your letters. What do you think, should he be caught up? I’m thinking about giving him a vision. You know, a kind of out of body experience.”
Paul and God conversed quietly for a bit.
Everything in heaven went into high gear. Angels were flying every which way. Paul walked away, his shoulders shaking.
“I love him that much,” God said to everyone in particular, and the glow around Him filled the Heavens, his voice filled with laughter, er joy.
“He’s gonna make him say it, isn’t He?” said one of the angels as they got the third heaven ready.
“One day he’s going to have to admit to super natural events, isn’t he.” pronounced Michael. It wasn’t a question.
God smiled and said, “That woman thinks it’s just her prayers that will be answered. I love it when a plan works out.”
