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Welcome to Saga Kraft.Myths, fairy tales, legends: Stories comfort us, inspire us, and heal us. Please join us as we share stories, both old and new. More than anything, we are open to the story and its unfolding, At times, it may be one story told by one person. At times, it’s the same story told through three different voices. In the end, we go were the story takes us . . . and we invite you to follow.Here's this week's story:God gets an upgradeGod is going about his godly business as one among many Gods. His humans, however, are bickering with the neighbors about property lines. They are starting to talk trash about how great God is and how he’s supreme. At first, he’s flattered. He performs a couple easy miracles, like getting old women pregnant (not exactly a hardship for a male God). But then they push him hard to prove that he’s the end-all-be-all of deities. Concerned, God looks around. He notices that Dionysus has taken off for the islands and left a power vacuum in Sodom and Gomorrah—a place God’s own people have been bitching about. So he figures he can make an easy stand there. At first, God thinks he’ll just go impress them with his Godliness. But when he gets there they just laugh. The fact is they are far more sexually experienced than he is, and unimpressed with pregnant women. So he goes away to contemplate a long-term conversion strategy. His followers, however, have no patience and pressure him for a large scale display of power. Eventually God caves; he announces that he will destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.At first, people argue, which is a great relief to God who doesn’t want to do it anyway. God is pleased when they ask if he’ll spare the city if they find 50 good men; he figures he’s off the hook. As far as he can tell, there are thousands of good people there. But he has to put up some kind of a front, so he pushes back. Eventually, he gets them to lower the number, then sends them in to point out some good folks. They come back empty handed. And God wonders how he drew the short straw in followers.God then sends in his angels. Surely they can find someone. As soon as they arrive, Lot, the kid from the sheep incident, runs out to greet them. God wonders why it never before occurred to him to miss Lot. He should have guessed he was in party-town. God hopes the angels will stay away from that one. But no, they go home with him. God hopes Lot has changed.That evening, God sees a bunch of people heading to Lot's house for a party. And he gets excited. Maybe Lot has changed; now he has friends! But when they reach the door at the appointed time, Lot sneaks out and whispers that they should leave because he has guests. His friends think he’s joking; of course he has guests—it’s a party. They shove at the door. God thinks this is his golden opportunity to convert people. They are joyfully gathered. Surely Lot will tell them how great he is. So he shows up in his brilliant, godly glory. Everyone freaks out—people begin to scream. Lot slams the door shut. Startled, God ducks behind a tree. The party folks calm down and start to pressure Lot, asking him to at least send his new friends out to meet them—maybe have a beer. But he shoves his tween-aged but as-yet-unnamed kids out the door instead yelling “take my daughters. They have never known a man.” This, God thinks, is the Lot I remember. Lot’s friends, including his daughters’ fiancés, leave in deep disgust. The angels, however, are now convinced that Sodom and Gomorrah truly are corrupt. They lean hard on God to destroy the area in a big show. They want Lot to witness and escape so he can report the display of power to others. God sighs deeply. ‘Well,’ he thinks, ‘I really could use more followers; this might help my image. And Lot is one of my people, so I can save him.’God tells Lot to head for the hills. Lot refuses. ‘WTF,’ God thinks, ‘I just agreed to save you.' But Lot insists he wants to go live in Zoar. "Whatever," God says. "Just don’t look back," he adds, realizing that he has no stomach for actual killing and will have to sneak the unfortunate residents out during the night. Lot turns and runs for the hills rather than Zoar, as God thinks ‘what the hell is wrong with that man.' Lot’s wife, however, whose name Lot apparently has never bothered to learn, turns around in front of her husband on the road. 'Shit,’ God responds, as he munches on a fist full of remarkably bland peanuts, 'I have to do something memorable to punish her—quick!.' Thinking fast, God turns her into salt.Lot and his girls make it up the hill and set up camp. Once there, Lot spends several days getting wasted and impregnating his children then makes up a story to tell the neighbors in Zoar. And God realizes that some people never change, as he wanders off to warn the local sheep. God Wants to PartyAs time goes on, God begins to get comfortable in his promotion to The One True God. There’s been some initial trial and error, of course—these things never go as smoothly as one would like—but God is starting to understand the expectations and demands of ‘His People’, though it’s still hard for him to think of them as that. God’s not accustomed to the idea of owning a large, migrating, group of humans. They are not only capable, but arguably obsessed with, independent thought. They never go where he sends them, and instead spend ages wandering the desert following each other’s bizarre whims. Sometimes it’s all he can do to keep them fed and watered. And he still feels a bit confused by the idea that he’s The One True God, particularly since it’s common knowledge that there are many such gods and goddesses. But, that’s what they call him, and who is he to argue. He is excited that they are finally creating real relationship! ‘His People’ check in regularly through prayers and dreams and he’s coming to genuinely like a few of them, especially the one’s that smell good. No matter how many times he tells them to bathe, most of them take it as a metaphor or assume he’s talking to someone else.Recently, God’s been receiving a lot of complaints about a neighboring town: Nineveh. And this is where his current dilemma rears it’s golden bovine head. God wants, really wants, to live up to the expectations of the ‘His People’. But the people of Nineveh are not, strictly speaking, ‘His’, even if he accepts that some are. The Nineveh residents do not go around worshiping him, or even bragging about The One True God. Most of them worship Ishtar. In truth, God’s always had a thing for Ishtar, a full-figured goddess with long, thick, auburn hair, olive skin, and eyes like embers dancing in a fire. God thinks it’s a shame that she’s in a committed three-way with her sister and Tammuz, even if it is an open relationship. She deserves better. She’s so much more appealing and reasonable than the other gods and goddesses in the region who spend their time goading chubby people into overeating and seducing cattle off cliffs. In any event, if the people of Nineveh “belong” to anyone, and God remains unconvinced of this, it’s Ishtar. And he’d never want to steal from her or destroy her “things,” if they can be called that. What’s a God to do: Live up to the inappropriate expectations of ‘His People’ and criticize the folks of Nineveh, whom he, frankly, admires for their bohemian flare; or let ‘His People’ down by ignoring their pleas?God thinks back, remembering the debacle in Sodom and Gomorrah. That was a similar situation and, while it didn’t really go according to plan and God wasn’t wholly happy with the outcome, it had been navigated and certainly had some lessons to be garnered. Reflecting, God realizes his takeaways are thus: choose a decent human who is motivated by things other than alcohol and incest; don’t ask said human to prove anything—just tell him or her what to do and say; demonstrate integrity in said words and deeds; model respect and appreciation for differences rather than bending to demands to condemn others; respect other Gods and Goddesses, while doing his best to serve ‘His People.’ After all, the whole thing might have been avoided if he’d just flown to the islands and consulted with Dionysus directly.God considers and decides that, as long as he has to do something—and he feels he does—he wants to model good behavior and demonstrate positivity and appreciation for other cultures. After giving it some thought, he realizes that he’d like to work with Jonah. Jonah’s a nice, unattached, young man. He has no immediate obligations, and who knows, he might find himself an exotic wife, like Ishtar, on the trip. Plus, his dad, Ammittai, will be happy to provide the personal resources to travel to Nineveh without undue financial hardship. God will just chat with him in a pleasant dream and everything will be taken care of. Plus, Jonah smells great. Not only does he bathe regularly, the youth enjoys enhancing his aroma with a sweet smelling substance he harvests off local trees. It’s quite appealing. So God appears before the boy. The youth has harvested some flax leaves and is standing over a well gazing at his reflection while using the cellulose to scrape away the odd bits between his teeth. “Wow,” God thinks. “This one really is a leader in the world of personal hygiene.” After inhaling deeply to see if the boy’s wearing that sweet sap he likes so much, God bellows “Jonah,” in his deepest booming voice (Berlin and Brettler Jonah 1.1). It’s important to keep up appearances. Lucky for the young man, his bone-sharp incisor slices through the flax preventing him from ripping his tooth out. He catches himself, unfortunately by the cheek, on the well’s edge then crouches down and looks around, but sees no one. He creeps backwards, away from the well—and shaking in terror—as the skin on his face blooms into a lovely purple flower.God feels terrible that he’s frightened the poor youth. He wants to put the boy at ease. “Jonah,” God repeats, wanting to get to the point before anything else goes awry. “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim judgment upon it; for their wickedness has come before me” (Berlin and Brettler Jonah 1.2). God always tries to remember to use his ‘professional voice’ when talking with ‘His People.’ God hopes that Jonah will understand that God is not angry; he just wants Jonah to do him a solid. Jonah, however is in a state of sheer panic. He’s never been one to get on board with the whole ‘God’ thing and is strongly suspecting, with the wee part of his reptilian brain that is still functioning, that he is in imminent danger of becoming completely insane. Taking a few deep breaths, he decides to just roll with it. “Sure,” he responds, “I love a road trip.”“Great!,” God says. He figures he’s fulfilled his directives: good human; straightforward command. He’s in his integrity and doing his best to serve ‘His People’. Now he just needs to demonstrate appreciation for cultural differences. First, God thinks, he’ll speak with Ishtar to be sure they’re on the up and up and she knows that Jonah’s dropping by for a quick hello. God secretly hopes that Ishtar will throw another awesome dance party like the one she threw last time Tammuz came home. God remembers fondly how, at the end of the evening, they overturned all the tables and made a slippery-slide on the wet dance floor. God heads to Ishtar’s alter, an intricately formed statue built into a cave. He always feels bad when he thinks about her actual beauty compared with the lumpy ‘likeness’ of her housed in a hillside; It’s not like her at all. But she does respond immediately when he calls to her from there.Jonah, however, continues to spasm and twitch for about an hour. Eventually, he decides that he may be able to cure his obvious mental illness if he takes a nice, long vacation. Obviously, the strain of puberty has been too much for him, and his aromatherapy is not working the miracles he’d hoped. Jonah goes to his dad whom, having had a powerful dream, agrees that he should take a trip and swiftly hands him lots of cash. So Jonah decides to visit Tarshish, where he used to vacation when he was a child, to reinforce his fragile sanity. The youth heads first to Joppa to catch a boat (Berlin and Brettler Jonah 1.3). Unfortunately, having stopped several times to run cool water over his now enormous facial bruise, he arrives an hour too late. He has missed the boat. Jonah hates that thought . . . If only it hadn’t become an expression of failure. At any rate, he is determined to succeed, and the first step is recovering his sanity. He commissions an entire crew, complete with ship, and sets course to Tarshish.Meanwhile, God is chatting up Ishtar. He called from her alter and she descended immediately. He handed her a bit of sap he’d collected on the way, and encouraged her to spread it behind her ears, as Jonah did. Unfortunately, it smelled a bit sour and acidic. He’d have to remember to ask Jonah what that stuff he used was called. In any event, Ishtar seems thrilled to see him. This, more than anything, makes God feel powerful. She invites him in and suggests that she “slip out of something uncomfortable,” noting that she prefers not to wear clothing during the six months when Tammuz is off with her sister. Good thing she’s immune to thermal conditions, she remarks, being a Goddess. Her half-husband does his best to ensure frigid weather whenever he’s out of town. Luckily, Tammuz is fairly incompetent when it comes to temperatures and rarely manages frost, despite his significant efforts. It’s difficult to keep things cold above when it’s getting hot for him down below . . . but she doesn’t like to think about that. In any event, she seems glad, very glad, that God has come to call.“Ishtar,” God says, trying not to do a full body check, “how lovely to see . . . I mean . . . talk with, you.”“Thank you, God. It’s my pleasure,” Ishtar notes, smoothing the lack of fabric on her thigh. “What can I do for you?”After a moment of being lost in thought, God remembers why he’s here. “Well, I’m getting a lot of requests these days regarding your people in Nineveh. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you how beautiful I find your city: truly one to be proud of. And irrigation! However did you think of it?! I really could not admire your work more. And yet, ‘My People’ seem discontent. They always get that way when they’ve been wandering too long. If only I could somehow get it through their heads to ask for directions . . . ” “Anyway, I’ve told a lovely young man, named Jonah, to visit Nineveh, and let ‘Your-People’ know that I’ve noticed their admirable lack of inhibitions—I called it wickedness, because I remember that you told me how you like to be wicked” he says, leaning over and casting her a tentative glance while blushing and smiling seductively, “and I approve. If only ‘My People’ would relax and let loose more they might be a bit happier. I want Jonah to let ‘Your People’ know I admire their party atmosphere. And I want to set an example of positively acknowledging other, divergent, cultures. In any event, I just wanted to let you know that he’s on his way . . . If truth be told,” God admits, “I’d absolutely love to throw another fantastic dance party.”“Why, thank you, God. I’m flattered! And I’d love to have a dance party. I’ll see if “My People’ are into it. But even if they aren’t, I can assure you that I am. And sending ‘your boy’ to compliment our culture is such a thoughtful thing to say and do! I know I’m grateful that you’re so close at hand,” Ishtar replies, taking his hand and clasping it to her chest. God blushes even deeper and starts fiddling with the edge of his tunic. “I . . . I . . . know . . . I’ve asked before, Ishtar . . . but are you sure you’re not barren?”“No,” Ishtar replies in a deep, throaty voice, leaning in so close that God is nearly overwhelmed by the acrid scent of the sap he’d brought her, “I’m as…
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