God: What have you brought me?

Sparkagod: I wrote a hundred songs. I’m pretty pleased over that.

God: Hm. That’s nice. They all seem like one continuous song though. Anything else?

Sparkagod: I helped a bunch of little old black ladies, til they all died. They all loved me.

God: Now we’re really getting somewhere—my mandate to help others. What else did you do?

Sparkagod: Well, I read War and Peace three times. I’m probably the only person on Earth who actually plodded through it three times, but so what.

God: Wonderful, my child. That heeds my mandate to attain knowledge. Almost everybody has done more good than they think they have. What else can you think of?

Sparkagod: I’ve helped quite a few who clearly didn’t have sense enough to help themselves. Does that count?

God: Only if you did it freely, in generosity that expected nothing in return. Which in fact you did, because, you see, I already know what you did and for whom you did it. But you shouldn’t presume to judge why they did or didn’t help themselves, unless you can read minds there on Earth the way all minds are wide open here for everybody to read. Anything else?

Sparkagod: Not much. I wasted a lot of years in company of lowlifes and sorry trash—drinking, fighting, getting in jail. I’m so sorry, I apologize.

God: What for? Have you not yet learned to forgive yourself for what you think were mistaken choices? Did you not learn enormously from your interactions with those “lowlifes?” They’re my children too, you know, just like you. Did you not love them unconditionally, as I do?

Sparkagod: Well, sometimes…I guess…I suppose I wouldn’t have spent so many years with them if I hadn’t loved them…in some remotely loving sort of way. But not unconditionally, no. They were a real bunch of badasses.

God: Any badder than you were?

Sparkagod: No, I suppose not. Mostly.

God: Did the lot of you learn anything from each other, or with regard to your own values? Did any of you rise above the level of strife and drunkenness you were all choosing at that time?

Sparkagod: Well, I think I did. I don’t feel now the values I felt in those old days. Maybe some of them rose too. I know many who didn’t, they just misbehaved for a few decades and then died.

God: Do you really think their lives were wasted? Do you feel yours has been wasted so far?

Sparkagod: Well, it seems like…like I could have done so much better than I did.

God: What is “better?” Didn’t you learn from your experiences? Don’t you think they did too?

Sparkagod: Yes, I did for sure. I suppose, surely, they did too, at least some of them.

God: Would you agree, then, that every one of you, trying hard to feed your youthful unfulfilled egos by acting out as cocky badasses, were adding to your accumulation of life experiences?

Sparkagod: Yes, I guess I see that. But it just seems like “having experiences” is not enough, that they ought to all be “high” or “moral” or “worthy” experiences. Some behavior is just unworthy.

God: Unworthy by whose standards?

Sparkagod: Well, I sorta thought it was your standards. That’s what I was told. All the churches teach that. Don’t sin or you’ll go to hell…all that stuff.

God: What is sin? Did you believe that controlling hell stuff they made up and try to pin on me?

Sparkagod: It’s hard not to believe them when you’re surrounded by them and that’s all there is…except maybe a few people in my life who thought differently than the churches think.

God: You are gifted with a discerning mind, able to think and reason and achieve understanding. Your good mind is in my image. Listen carefully my child: All is as it should be.

Sparkagod: It is? Does that mean all my sins—say, my wrongdoings—were okay? When I look at this world and the greedy people around me, I sure don’t think everything is as it should be. Some days it seems like almost everything is worse than it should be—or at least could be.

God: You must be watching too much news—they just recite the worst stuff and ignore all the good. You have free will, that’s another of my gifts to every one of you, and so you’re free to choose whatever you wish to believe, but I’m going to tell you once more: All is as it should be.

Sparkagod: Maybe it is, but I’m not you, God, and I just cannot see it that way.

God: Now we’re getting somewhere again. How do you see it?

Sparkagod: When I look around me, and read books, and listen to the news…it seems like almost everything on Earth could be better than it is. And I—we—ought to be trying to better it.

God: Good. Very good. Do you think attaining knowledge and helping others will better it?

Sparkagod: Well, yes, but…

God: But what? Relax. Lighten up. I don’t expect you to do my job. I just hope you’ll do your job, which is to go out and have lots of experiences through this temporary Earth life—which you chose to live—and do the best you can to learn from your experiences, then apply that learning, plus some understanding and some wisdom, to fulfill my three most important mandates.

Sparkagod: What are those?

God: You already know, intuitively. Number one: help others. Number two: attain knowledge, and work hard to understand what you’ve attained, then work even harder to glean some wisdom out of that understanding—so that you’ll be a bit wiser in the many ways you can help others. Then there’s number three, which is to grow in spirit, so that then when your Earth body grows old and falls apart, you yourself will come home to me and bring me all those wonderful experiences packed with a lifetime of earned understanding and earned wisdom. Remember?

Sparkagod: Wow. I do remember—I can’t remember like this when I’m in my body…

God: For now you can. Those three are how I become more. And you become more. For I am you and you are me—a little spark part of me that I set loose eons ago, with free will, so you could go out and have a whole lifetime of experiences and grow and evolve and diversify and add complexity and all these wonderful aspects of “more.” And then bring it all back to me.

Sparkagod: I feel like you’ve just clarified my whole life mission. But compared to what you said I feel so incomplete, I don’t know if I can stand it.

God: I just did and you can. So get up off your duff and do it. Get out and meet people. Interact with them—that’s what life is. Use your good mind and your talents, apply them for the benefit of others. You have a brightness uniquely all your own, go out and share it with others.

Sparkagod: Does this mean I’m not here to stay?

God: That’s right, you cannot stay. It’s not your time yet. Your mission remains uncompleted.

Sparkagod: But I like it here. I’ve never felt such unconditional surpassing love as when I came out of that tunnel and you embraced me. Life on Earth seems so much colder and harder…

God: Remember what Earth is for. It’s part of my grand plan. The planet Earth is one of the most exceedingly beautiful and lovable places in the universe, if you will just love it. You must go back to it and live out the rest of this Earth life—the life you yourself chose in the first place. Do you remember choosing?

Sparkagod: Yes, I do remember! There were some specific things I needed to learn in order to grow in spirit. I chose those parents and that country at this particular time in history in order to optimize the likelihood that I would encounter just the right circumstances I need in order to overcome, to learn and grow beyond myself, higher. Haven’t I been doing that, at least some?

God: So far so good, but you’re not done yet. Don’t you think you need to finish the job you set out to do during this lifetime?

Sparkagod: Well, I realize I still have a lot of room to grow. But I love being here, I want to stay.

God: You will always be with me, and I with you, regardless whether you’re here or there. You will forget certain truths while you’re embodied, but in the private recesses of your mind’s intuition you will always feel my presence, and you will know you are never alone. Your guiding spirits will be with you too. Go back to your Earth body now. Spend the rest of your days being all that you can be. The next time I ask “What have you brought me,” as I will, have a lot for me.

Sparkagod: I will, and thank you! I feel so much better now. I feel more love than I ever knew it was possible to feel.

God: I love you too.