Scott Turow is a successful Chicago attorney and popular novelist. In an interview on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday with Host Scott Simon before of crowd of fans this morning, he speculated about the profession that God labored in before he became God.
"Three men sat at a bar--a Doctor, an Engineer and a Lawyer," the Lawyer/Novelist began. "The Doctor said that God was obviously trained as a Physician. 'Look at the wonders of the human body!'
'The Engineer interrupted with, 'Consider the majestic mountains--the vast oceans--the incredible infastructure of the earth. No doubt! God is an Engineer.'
"The Lawyer smiled. 'You're both wrong. He was a Lawyer, alright! Before all of that you describe, God created Darkness and Chaos!' " (Laughter)
Lorenzo Snow coined the couplet, "As man is, God once was and as God is, Man may become."
Anyone who believes in Eternal Progression has to wonder what God, the Father's life was on his earthly mortal probation.
As I wrote the homegrown musical MISSIONARY BOXER I told a member of our Stake Presidency that I believed that God was a playwrite in an earlier existence. He smiled thoughtfully and we moved on to other things.
I've thought about that since--and concluded that like William Faulkner, the novelist, our Heavenly Father likely once had walls filled with character descriptions in his study, imagined what would happen as the characters interacted and wrote the result in his own prize winning style. Consider the scriptures as an historical pageant that God caused to be written knowing just about how it would end..
In that way, its easier for me to understand how God knows the end from the beginning. It also takes insto account agency that each man and woman are guaranteed. Faulker and other novelists talk about their work and mention often how a character went a different way in their mind than what the author had intended.
That Father develops such outlines and interactions for each of the billions who have, do and yet will live on the earth--that is amazing to me. Maybe he has help! And maybe that help has help, if you count the Holy Ghost as the eternal guide. It makes sense to me that the Celestial Kingdom will be filled with future Gods and Godesses getting ready for their own worlds, solar sysstems and galaxies. If his work and his glory is the eternal life of man, why not apprentice work of this kind? Of course it's all speculation, but as a budding playwrite, it makes sense to me.
And while we're on the subject, consider Elder Ronald A. Rasband, the Senior President of the Seven Presidents of Seventy described what happens behind the scenes at the calling of a missionary by a member of the Quorum of the Twelve (in this case then Apostle Henry B. Eyring). A careful reading of Elder Rasband's talk The Divine Call of a Missionary from the Priesthood Session of April' 2010's LDS General Conference will give some fascinating insight into how men on earth are guided by the spirit in sending missionaries to the right mission.
NOTE: This post marks 100 posts that I've written for Grampa in Training (GiT) 68 have been published. 32 are still in draft form waiting to be developed. Interesting that this post would speculate the history of the Supreme Being. Bloggers have a personal history that won't quit! Funny that my high school prophecy predicted that I would produce seven volumes of my autobiography! Anybody who's even "toe dipped" into this "production" knows that I'm well on my way.
It's not so much the self absorbtion. (With 250 million blogs and increasing daily, the chances of anyone from my old Laramie High School Class of 1965 stumbling on this blog is slim to none. If they do, I hope they leave a comment or send me an e-mail. grampaintraining@gmail.com The key to readability 45 years later is brevity and humor. It helps if the post is interesting to anyone besides me. Of course this is just one of billions of Internet options. Best Wishes whether you continue to explore Grampa in Training (GiT) or not! JRH .
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