As a storyteller in two different guilds, I often hear the same story from two different tellers. My favourite tellers are the ones who make the same story sound give very different messages. I find the more common ending to King Solomon’s Ring depressing. Or Hugh’s The Dark Child. I found it depressing that everyone was happy that by the end, “there was nothing by which you could tell him from every other child,” and the other tellers understood that, but one would tell it happy because the others were no longer blaming the child for being different.

God as Storyteller is one more example of why I’m glad I don’t have His job. I have enough trouble making my own small stories believable and balanced.

I’ve just finished reading Demon: A Memoir (highly recommended, btw) and it was the first time that I saw it specifically stated that Lucifer is not God’s “archenemy” simply because God created him, and a creation can never be equal to the Creator. (It was much more eloquently put in the book, but my brother has borrowed it so I’m paraphrasing the idea a slight bit).

I like your idea of creating and loving your creation. God did give us the power to create and to take joy in it the way He did over everything He made.

People who genuinely love become more alive and more fully realized.

Ivy, if you look at a handful of the holiest people you can think of, they all have very diverse and colorful personalities. Taken as a group, they are variegated and different in their focus and the way they go about their brand of goodness.

If you look at a handful of the evilest people you can think of, over time they all become the same, like husks of people. They become paranoid, bitter, angry, and completely concerned with getting what is theirs at the expense of everyone else. Take as a group, they begin to look the same. The difference between a malevolent dictator and a toxic great-grandmother is only the amount of power that person had to wield in this lifetime.