THE PLAN…
God sat on his throne at the front of the room and stared at the endless sea of faces beaming back at him. His progeny. His children. He had no idea how many of them there were - billions, trillions even - but each and every one of them knew and loved him with all their transparent little hearts.
God tapped the microphone with his fingertips and heard the low thud-thud-thud emanating from the speakers around the room. “Is this thing on? Can everybody hear me? You guys in the back, can you hear me okay?”
“YES, GOD,” said billions of small, breathy voices in unison. All of God’s children leaned forward a bit, eager to hear why he had called all of them together.
“Okay, great. So. Thanks for coming, everyone.” God cleared his throat. “Excuse me. Alright, so, I bet you’re all wondering why I asked all of you here today. Here’s the thing. I’m sure you’ve all noticed how you guys are different from your mothers and me. We have physical bodies, and you’re just made of some other kind of substance, right?”
“RIGHT, GOD!” a billion voices agreed.
“Alright, so, the thing is, the whole idea is that you guys get to become like me and your moms someday, but in order to do that you have to have a physical body.”
“Are you going to make some for us?” asked a voice in the crowd.
“No, I can’t. I mean, obviously yes, I COULD, but no, that’s not how it works. You all have to go through something called ‘mortality’. That’s where you get your bodies.”
“Where is mortality?”
“It’s not a where, it’s a what. It’s, like, something you have to do.” God paused, trying to figure out how to phrase the next part so they would understand. “It’s like a trip. You have to go away for a little while -”
The whole crowd gasped. God’s head swam with the sudden loss of oxygen in the room. “GO AWAY? WE HAVE TO GO AWAY?” they cried.
“Guys! Guys! It’s okay. You get to come back!”
A rush of relief washed over God’s children. They began chattering excitedly among themselves, asking each other what they thought mortality was like and whether they should pack their rain coats, just in case. God held his head in his hands. He knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but he had no idea how to make them understand what was going to happen to them. Eyes closed, God lifted the microphone to his lips and mumbled, “Can you guys please be quiet for a minute?”
The crowd instantly stopped talking and turned their attention back to God. He rubbed the back of his neck before speaking again.
“Okay, so, I’m glad you guys are all on board for this, but there’s something you need to understand. You can’t just go and come back, because the whole point is that you have to LEARN something. You have to prove that you’re capable of being like me - of being gods. It’s a test. You have to be good.”
A small hand shot up in the third row. “Excuse me, God?”
“Yeah, um…”
“Lucifer.”
“Lucifer, that’s right. You have a question?”
“Yeah. What’s ‘good’?”
God considered for a moment. “Good is like God, but with an extra O. So it’s being like God, plus some more.”
“Oh.” Lucifer furrowed his transparent little brow and then slowly raised his hand again. “What does that mean?”
Sigh. “Look, basically, when you go through mortality, you’re going to have to make choices. You’ll go, get your physical body, and then have to spend a while making decisions about all sorts of things. If you make good choices, then you get to come back here with me when you’re done. But if you make bad choices, you don’t get to come back.”
A low murmur rippled through the crowd. Lucifer shot his hand up in the air again. “How do we make good choices?”
“By doing what I want you to do. That’s what ‘good’ means - doing what God wants you to do.”
“But that’s silly. How could we NOT do what you want?” Lucifer asked. “You’re GOD. You say something and we do it! You’re in charge of everything!”
This was not going well. God beckoned to Lucifer to come up and join him at the throne. Lucifer bounced out of his seat, up the aisle, and hopped up on God’s lap. He beamed up at his father and stroked God’s beard in admiration as God spoke, reveling in the one-on-one attention. “Lucifer, maybe you can help me illustrate this point to everybody. You think you can help me?”
“Of course, God!”
“Okay. So you stand up here.” God set Lucifer down at the front of the stage and handed him the microphone. “Now you say, ‘everyone should just get to go get their body and then come back to Heaven to be with God.’”
“Everyone should just get to go get their body and then come back to Heaven to be with God!”
“Very good.” God took the microphone and said, “You guys will have to prove that you’re worthy to be with me. Some of you will get to come back, and some of you won’t. Now, everybody, raise your hand if you want it the way Lucifer said.”
Throughout the crowd, many of God’s children sniffed and shed quiet tears, but no one raised their hand. “Oh, come on guys,” God said in an exasperated tone. “Don’t you guys want to all come back here to be with me?”
“Of course we do!” said Lucifer. “But we have to do what you say, because you’re God!” The crowd nodded in agreement.
God pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and muttered. “Jesus Christ.”
“Yes, God?” Jesus sat in the front row, of course, and grinned up at God with a grin that was a bit too grinny. God had a flash of inspiration.
“Jesus, yeah. Come up here a second.” Jesus clambered up onto the stage and stood beside Lucifer. “Okay, now Lucifer, you say that same thing you said before. And Jesus, you say the thing that *I* said before. And then everybody else,” God looked out over the crowd of his children, “is going to have to choose which plan they think is better.”
A voice cried out from the middle of the room. “You want us to make the good choice, right? So which one is the plan you want us to choose?”
God shook his head. “I can’t tell you. That’s the whole point. You have to think about it and decide by yourselves which one you think is good, and which one you think is bad. That’s the test. That’s what mortality is all about.” God could practically hear their billions of little brains churning, wrapping themselves around this new information. “If you make the good choice you’ll get rewarded, and if you make the bad choice you’ll get punished. Okay, so is everybody ready? Lucifer, go ahead.”
Lucifer took the microphone. “Everyone should just get a physical body and then get to come back to Heaven to be with God again.”
He handed the microphone to Jesus. Jesus grinned wide-eyed at the crowd and said, “Everyone has to prove they’re worthy. Some will come back to Heaven, and some won’t. Just like God said.”
God took the microphone back and wiped Jesus’ hot, moist breath off of it with his robe before speaking. “Thanks, guys. Okay, so now everyone who thinks Lucifer’s plan is the right choice, raise your hands.” The crowd hesitated. “Go on,” God said. “Raise your hands.”
Slowly, a few hands started popping up throughout the crowd. Some of them figured that God would want all of his children to return to him, and so that plan was the good one. Others only raised their hands because God had just said to and they wanted to do what he asked. Eventually, about a third of the room had their hands in the air. “Good, thanks,” said God. “Go ahead and put your hands down. Now everyone who thinks Jesus had the right plan, raise your hands.” Again, the response was slow, but soon there were a few billion hands extended around the room.
“Okay, so,” God said, “everyone who raised their hand for Lucifer’s plan? You guys are now the baddies. You don’t get to go through mortality, and you don’t get to have physical bodies. Your job will be to try and trick everyone else into making bad choices, because only the ones who make really, really good choices and don’t fall for any of your tricks get to come back here and become gods themselves. Okay? So those of you who voted for Jesus’ plan, you’ll get to take the test and maybe come back to live with me again.” God sat back in his throne, relieved that the whole thing was finally finished and sorted.
The crowd stood in shocked silence. Was this real? Was this happening? Terrified, one tiny voice called out. “God?”
“Yeah?”
“I… I didn’t vote.”
“You didn’t vote? Why not?”
“I wasn’t sure which choice to make. They both seemed… bad.”
God looked out over his children. “Anybody else? Who didn’t vote for either plan?” Hands started popping up all over the room. God rubbed his temples and muttered. “Jesus Christ.”
“Yes, God?”
“Shut up. You guys seriously didn’t vote? Well, I can’t have you vote now, because now you know what the right choice was.”
“What’s going to happen to us?” asked one of the fencesitters.
“Well,” God considered, “you didn’t make the bad choice, and you didn’t make the good choice. So I guess I have to figure out a way to reward you, but also punish you.” He sat back and thought for a minute. The fencesitters waited eagerly for him to speak.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity and very well might have been, God snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it! I know what I’ll do. Everyone who didn’t vote for either plan, listen up. I have good news and bad news. The good news is, you’re going to be really good at basketball.”