Lucifer

Lucifer

There are many names I have been given; the Prince of Darkness, King of Hells, Satan, and the ever-popular Anti-Christ, but I am utterly assured that you do not know me. By now you've heard the stories; after all I am conceivably more intriguing than God, certainly more interesting. There is something about the human mind that is enthralled with the darkness. The enigmatic stirs more excitement than the serene.

You have been told that I rebelled against God and was cast out of Heaven during that infamous war with Michael. I do not deny my fall from grace, but have you ever thought to question my motives for rebelling? No, you simply believed the stories that have been handed down by those who seek to condemn me; that I wanted to rule in God’s place, that I was jealous of Jesus, that I wanted power and now I steal human souls to get even with God.

You have never doubted the accuracy of these mendacities and I have been found guilty by the human race without trial. I have been blamed as the seed of your wicked ways, labeled as the Angel oust from redemption. But I tell you it is a certain truth that you have been deceived. For centuries I have been the liable anonymity you know as Lucifer, but now, as you sit behind the fence as my judge and jury, the time of my redemption is at hand.

If you are already thinking blasphemy, close this book now and put it away, or burn it. I assure you my words will shake the foundation of your erroneous ideals and false beliefs, for I am also the nemesis of your blind convictions, the adversary of your theological precincts. Heed my warning when I say; if you begin this book, you must finish this book.  

If you choose to continue do not judge me for my darkness, for you and I are of the same kind. While I am an Angel and you are human we suffer the same insatiable hunger for justice. Like you humans, we Angels feel the need to be comforted by Divine love. We crave eternal peace, to be fulfilled, and to have the burden of discontent lifted from our souls. There is an underlying craving that haunts all of us, both humans and Angels for a resolution to this mystery of our existence.

The feeling is not something we can fully put into words; it is more of an unresolved pain within all of us that needs to know who we are, what our purpose is, where have we come from, and where are we going. It is the loneliness you humans feel in your lover’s arms, the dissatisfaction when getting what you longed for, that dreaded incompleteness that lingers underneath every pleasure. It is the void you feel even after all your Earthly dreams have come true, if you should be so lucky. I prefer to name it the feeling of existential abandonment, or simply our innate discontentedness.

I hope that these words are a sufficient description so you know the feeling I am trying to convey. It is the feeling that is important, not the words, and it is this feeling that connects us. This longing to be fulfilled is the unfortunate commonality that brings us together, and still leaves us divided. Though you may not understand just how close you and I are now, by the end of my story you will. You can listen and I will tell you everything I know or you can close this book now and run to the uncertain loyalty of your faith and pretend we never met, but let me ask you; when has your faith ever lifted this discontented feeling completely from your soul? I assure you if it had, and if it could, I would not exist as I am. And you would not long to find your eternal peace after death, you would feel it here, right now. But you don’t, do you? Instead, they taught you to hope and believe in something you cannot yet conceive.

If you could only here me laughing.

As for the captivating stories you have heard about me some are true and some are not. Either way they are stories colored by the human senses incapable of understanding the totality of all that I am. Now, I can only write to you in a language, trying to describe to you my experience, unable to give you the experience itself. Only a description of my experience will you find here in words for each reader to interpret a different way, just as you do with your Bible.

For now I simply want to give you my side of the story. Throughout history humans have never been ready for the truth, and I am not certain you are ready for it in this present time. But I am certain that my story must be told for the sake of humanity, out of desperation and love for humanity, in hopes that your lives are not in vain and all is returned to goodness. Like a mirror held before the human soul, this tale is a reflection of all of us and our unappeasable hunger to know complete, feel complete, and be complete.

So I ask you to spend the next few nights with me. Give me these nights and let me take you into my darkness, into the reasoning of my seditious thought. In return I will give you the world as it was from the beginning, pull you through the heavens and hells, and reveal to you something more important than the meaning of your lives. I will offer you the secrets of the universe and God as best I can put them into words, but I must begin with the beginning of what I know: myself as an Angel.

*

I was Lucifer, a beautiful Angel. We were all beautiful as far as our personalities. We had no physical substance. Later we had taken form to appear on Earth, but we are not these alabaster creatures who fly around with big white, feathery wings and a halo. All creatures have an aura. When we took human form made out of light, a human might catch a glimpse of a brilliant clear aura circling over our head down along the sides and circling again near the feet. This egg-shape aura can and has been mistaken for white feathery wings, especially when seen floating in mid air.

In our original state we had no need for form. We also did not feel temperatures like humans. The fires of a sun and coldness of empty space could not hurt us. We enjoyed them in a way humans enjoy a cool breeze on a sunny afternoon or a fireplace on a cold night. All of creation was comforting just to witness, but understand this; we had nothing to be comforted from. Before Earth, everything was blissful to us, unlike humans who relentlessly seek out comfort to escape from discomfort. I would come to learn that this was one advantage humans had over us Angels. Humans experienced discomfort, and therefore truly knew what comfort was. We Angels began as observers and humans as experiencers. 

Among Angels I was known as the mischievous one and was well admired for my curiosity. The universes were ours to explore, enjoy, love, witness, and know and I observed each fabric of creation intimately with an innate feeling of God’s love surrounding me.

Within the universes the dark emptiness cradled all things and to this darkness all things belonged, including the Earth. I had witnessed countless worlds come into being but when I saw the Earth, I became attached. I fell in love with the Earth. I favored the Earth. It was not unique in the universe by any means with its tranquil green waters and sky, but something drew me here. Perhaps curiosity! Perhaps destiny! Something I could feel, something I awaited and loved deeply. It was here, within the waters of the Earth, that I discovered we Angels were not alone. It was here that I discovered something fascinating: conscious, physical life.

This may sound strange to humans of the twenty-first century, but as we Angels witnessed the universes unfold we never considered that physical matter could be anything like us, having self-awareness of any kind. Everything grew and was destroyed, from mountains to planets, rocks and stars, and the universes themselves, but as we did not consider that rocks or ice had consciousness we never considered that cells, plants, or other tiny creatures in the Earth’s waters had consciousness. The first sign that physical reality could be aware of itself was new and exciting to most Angels, but to me it led to a myriad of questions that drove me into my shadowy fate. 

The more I observed these creatures, I became aware that God knew more than I and that I was detached from the knowledge of something magnificent, something profound. The more I pondered over this, the more I began to feel myself as an isolated being in the midst of great universes. I became aware that I was different from God, separate from God, perhaps envious of God. I became aware that though Angels understood the mechanics of matter, we could not understand as God understood. We were watchers of this dance of matter while God seemed to encompass the entire fabric of creation.

This realization was not frightening at first, but the more I dwelled in these thoughts, the more I felt lesser than God. Feelings of incompleteness began to sweep over me from time to time, as if I was missing something or lost something I never even owned. When these feelings visited me, as if they were not my own, I quickly returned to the Earth. The Earth became my fireplace from the chilling feeling of incompleteness.  The Earth's presence felt like a soft cool breeze to ease the heat of my growing discomfort. I began to rely on the Earth for my joy. Yet the more I became attached to the Earth, the more these feelings visited me. I was drawn into a cycle that I could not stop, nor did I want to stop. I had always been drawn to that which I did not understand and these feelings, despite their unpleasantness, were no exception.  It was the beginning of an irreversible cycle that would lead to my errant, malevolent destiny.

*

I watched the cells divide and how the colorful creatures that abided on the reefs of the oceans used the tide to spread their seeds, as if aware of the seasons, the tides, and the moon. I wondered if they were aware of me, watching them.

Many creatures divided into two sexes, either male or female. Sex was a new invention and catered to the mobility of creatures as they tediously developed legs, scales, fins, and teeth. I became aware that along with sensations, these creatures developed brains, which harnessed and shaped their thought processes. This was when I realized just how conscious physical matter had become. Like us Angels they were creatures who were aware of themselves in their environment. Perhaps they could not think like us, but they were developing intention to their actions, not simply awareness. This intention reflected the fact that they had individual personalities like us. Then I discovered something that changed my perception of these physical creatures forever.

I watched at the time when the physical body became useless. In the more subtle levels of physical existence, the consciousness of the creature still existed, separate from the body it left behind to rot away. Although the body had perished, the consciousness still tried to feed and reproduce as if it was still physically alive; a ghost of its former physical self. I realized then that these creatures were much more than conscious physical matter.

As I followed them further through the death process I discovered that they were all drawn back into the womb of their next mother. From one body to the next, countless times, over and over, the consciousness of each creature would occupy a body, live, die, and be reborn. This stage of existence, from a creatures death till their next rebirth, we called the Between, as they were between physical bodies.

In the grand scheme of things, death and reproduction (rebirth) were inventions in order to facilitate the evolution of species; nothing more than adaptation tools used to transfer the growing consciousness into the evolving physical form. Unlike Angels, who did not have form, and therefore no need for death or reproduction, these creatures needed these tools to evolve more rapidly. (In some cases, the shorter they lived the quicker the consciousness could move into a further evolved body. Creatures on the top of the food chain lived longer lives, as they had less need to evolve.) Their mind and body were like two sides of a coin, completely intertwined and drawn to each other. I rarely witnessed a creature change from one species to another, but it did happen.

Despite the great joy I found in observing their self-awareness pass from one body to the next, a shadow began to drift over my adoration as I opened my awareness to a great darkness that surrounded the Earth. Unlike Angels, the awareness of these creatures was confined to the physical world. Even after shedding the physical body, their craving for physical things did not cease. In the Between the consciousness of a cell was confined to being a cell, a turtle a turtle, and a whale a whale. Even in death their consciousness was never really free of its physical conditioning. 

These creatures were unaware of the previous body or the next one to come. They could not perceive us and they were oblivious to the fabric of the universe from which they arose, from which they were each a child. They could not even perceive God’s light. Witnessing these things, I became aware that not all of God’s creation was beautiful, for I was becoming aware of suffering.

Many of these creatures lived off the flesh of other creatures, consuming their energy so that they could stay in the body a little while longer. This did not disturb me until I became acutely aware that sensations, just like my feelings of incompleteness, could be unpleasant. The stinging, twitching nerves and torn flesh, it was unsettling to say the least. I began to recognize the fear and terror in their eyes. When we discovered the pain of it all, many of us found it difficult to watch.

Perhaps it would be difficult for a human to understand the strangeness of it all as you also are born in the midst of your own bondage, but we had always existed in the bliss and light of God’s seemingly boundless love. We never knew or felt pain before. Pain and suffering were not ideas in our mind even for the physical world. From an angelic point of view, for any creature to know pain and be unaware of God seemed out of touch with what should be. Perhaps a mistake, I often thought to myself.

A fear of what it might be like to exist in the dark physical universe devoid of God’s light and unaware of God’s love came over me, and I looked upon the creatures of the sea with a feeling of terrible sadness. This was the beginning of an inexorable gloom that would haunt me for what seemed like eternity. I did not want to believe what I saw, but the feeling of abhorrence within me would not let me turn away. I needed to speak with God.

*

There were many Angels in the depth of the seas witnessing these things. We had always understood that destruction was part of the universal design. The deaths of the sea creatures did not disturb us because their awareness lived on, but now we knew that their deaths were disturbing to them. For conscious creatures to know pain and suffering, this was something we could not understand so easily. The Earth Angels approached God with this matter, I being the hungriest for the answers.

My Beloved Creator, I spoke, we are in need of explanation. There is something about Your creation which we do not understand. The creatures within the seas of the Earth are going from body to body unaware of You and Your Love for them. Their existence is confined to the darkness of the physical world without Your Light and they feel pain and they suffer. Many are playful and enjoy Your Creation as we do, but most are too confined to survival needs to enjoy it. They struggle to find food and to reproduce. And they fear losing their lives and moving into the Between. Even in the Between they do not know, You. Can You help us to understand?

I have created the light and the darkness, the land and sea, and all the beauty upon the Earth, God said to us, and I saw that it was good. Now I have created creatures that live in the seas, fowl that move swiftly through the air, creatures that move upon the land, and let the Earth be filled with grass, herbs and fruit, and I saw that it also was good.

I hesitated, and then quickly turned my awareness toward the Earth to observe it once again. I remained in utter amazement, or was it terror, at what I saw. I felt as if I would shatter in that very moment. These emotions were still new to me. I saw creatures of countless more kinds roaming the Earth. I could feel their ignorance, their lack of awareness, their isolation, and their conscious pain. This moment was the complete reflection of my dissatisfaction, an epiphany of fate, my own feeling of incompleteness mixed with sheer terror.

How long was I observing the sea creatures that I missed the complexity that appeared on the dry land? I could see the pattern of their evolution. From out of the waters they came to dwell upon the land. The sea and sky changed from green to blue as oxygen replaced the carbon dioxide in the air. They adapted to the new atmosphere by growing lungs, along with strong legs, wings, feathers, and some fur, to protect them from the cold. Some creatures developed amazing eyesight, while others could not see but could smell or hear from great distances for such physically bound creatures. The variety of life and the abundance of plants was simply unbelievable.

The Earth had circled the star that gives it light perhaps millions of times since I entered the seas, and now I had seen the surface. I left the other Angels behind so that I might dwell invisibly among the Earth’s creatures and learn of them. I left God behind also without a word more; I was too amazed at what I saw to speak further at the moment. I had to observe, I had to learn.

As I watched I thought to myself that this certainly cannot be what God intended. How can this be good, as God called it? I could feel God’s love all around me, but to create ignorant creatures, confined to their bodies, dying and being reborn again and again, over and over did not make sense to me. The beauty of Earth’s creatures mixed with the suffering of the body and psychological ignorance, no, this cannot be! This must be a mistake!

*

Giant beasts sank their fanged teeth into the skulls of their prey, crushing the bones with the strength of their jaws. Pieces of flesh were torn away from the skeletal frame as the nerves went wild before the victim finally bled to death. Then, the conscious ghost drifted out of the body only to be born again, live again, suffer again, and die again. Hunter and prey, both so caught up in survival, unaware of their God, their biological make-up, their psychological prison, remained on Earth to kill and be killed again, to suffer and cause suffering over and over.

What has God done! I screamed inside myself. I did not want to believe God would allow this suffering to exist. None should suffer like this. This was monstrous, impossible. Perhaps God had lost control or something.... something, went wrong?

Before I reached out to be in the full presence of the Creator a voice of an Angel spoke to me saying, Do not question God about the consciousness of the Earth creatures again, Lucifer. I can feel your doubt. The voice belonged to Michael, the Angel I had shared so much with. As Michael continued I felt a strange dissonance between us. God told you that all is good. Take the Creator’s words for truth. Do not doubt the goodness.

But I think there has been a mistake; they are suffering pains of the body, of death and rebirth, and of not knowing God. They are blind of God’s Light. I have never seen these things, I pleaded before Michael. They cannot be what God intended. I think something went wr—

God knows of their suffering, Michael said. It is not a mistake. The Creator does not make mistakes. If God says all is good then all is good. Trust in that.

If God knows of their suffering then why does it go on? I questioned as we watched a suffering beast of the jungle lay immobile on the ground. She was breathing heavily through the night as an army of insects feasted on her flesh, mosquitoes on her blood, flies on her skin, and rodents eating their way inside, stealing the babies from her womb. The creature’s death was slow and painful until another beast of its own kind bit her throat. Her heart beat for the last time and the blood stopped feeding the other organs. The consciousness was finally freed of the body.

Birds began to eat the remains of the corpse in the morning light when the faithful Angel continued, I do not understand it myself, Lucifer, I could tell Michael was also disturbed at the carnage we witnessed, but I trust that all is good. I believe it is.

But the suffering—

Lucifer, God is beyond what we can understand. You might not be able to see the goodness, but all is good because God said it is good. You must simply have faith, Michael said with an authoritative voice. He seemed to expect me to ignore all these doubtful feelings, as if I could stuff them in a box and hide them or remove them from my thoughts.

I began to feel fear and insecurity that something was not right, and I was being asked to keep my curiosity restrained. This curiosity that I was once adored for suddenly felt like a fault within me. I merely wanted to understand, and Michael made it seem as if I was doing something that I was not allowed to do, as if I should not question such things. I myself began to feel as if I was suffering; though not like the creatures of Earth, it was this painful feeling that bonded me to them.

*

Centuries of Earth-time passed and I kept my silence, hoping the answers I sought would be revealed to me. Entire races of beings were wiped out and new breeds arose. Still they remained oblivious of God, and I wondered if God remained oblivious of them. 

I remained like an Earthly volcano, appearing sturdy and calm from the outside, yet my enraged curiosity began to boil within. When my emotions could not remain dormant any longer, I moved with determination towards the fullness of God and within the presence of this Boundless Love I raised the question of Earthly suffering once again.

My Loving Creator, please ease my curiosity that has grown to know frustration, impatience, and fear. I beg of You to enlighten me on the subject of Earth’s sufferings. I fail to see a purpose. What is its meaning, its grandeur?  Please, let me know.

Lucifer, God called out my name and spoke to me with all the patience and love that I lacked and more, there are things which you cannot now understand in the way I do. For now you are an observer. Just observe and trust when I say that all is good. It truly is good.

Help me to understand its goodness, I pleaded. My discontentment will not be satisfied until I do. I am growing more and more restless with each moment I observe. This is more than understanding the laws of creation, such as impermanence or the birth of a star. This is beyond natural, beyond simple intellectual investigation.

"The answer you seek is beyond what you call simple intellectual investigation. The truth is not for the reasoning mind to know, my beloved curious Angel. But natural, what is that? Just know that all is good," God simply replied.

But...I...

Observe in silence, Lucifer.  All is good.

*

I withdrew into myself for hundreds, perhaps thousands more Earth years. I had become accustomed to the seasons of the Earth, the days and nights, and occasionally took refuge in a quiet forest near water. Almost always near water. I loved its ability to move effortlessly across the land in the form of a soft steam, all the while, unknowing to those around it, it was carving a large chasm in the Earth. While the seasons changed they did not affect water’s presence and usefulness. It was always useful, always compliant and patient, comforting yet stern. It was easy to see its indestructibility. Sometimes I thought I could sense God in the rain and waves.

Above all I admired water’s ability to reflect not just the physical environment, but also what I felt. When I needed patience it gave me patience. When I needed courage it gave me courage. It existed as if it had no purpose yet accomplished everything, sustaining every plant and animal upon the Earth. It did not need a purpose, yet was naturally meaningful and essential.

My thoughts seemed to flow like water when I was near it, rising and vanishing as easy as the waves, unlike when I was near the creatures of God’s Earth. Near them, I tended to dwell on suffering. They moved in similar ways as water, from one body to another with the flow of thought, always present in one form or another, but they, unlike water, could be wounded. They were prisoners of the physical universe caught in a flow of fleeting happiness and unbearable pain, living in constant fear of having to camouflage themselves from their predators. They were always searching for food or lying in a half-conscious state somewhere between sleep and the horrified paradise they awaken too, always completely unconscious of their Creator.

Many of the creatures enjoyed much of their lives, but it was easy for me to see that all life was suffering. Behind the joyful play in the trees and water the shadow of death and loss awaiting them. No happiness they attained could last. No joy could be captured. No peace could endure forever. The root of their existence was ignorance (ignorant of where they came from, where they were going, and of their Creator), and ignorance was suffering even when colored by a glimpse, or even an entire lifetime, of pleasure.

And what of their Creator, the Creator who seems to have abandoned creation in a state of chaos? The world was so beautiful yet so vicious. Death freed these beings from the physical suffering for a moment, but in the Between their confusion and mental anguish never ceases. They were trapped in the cycle of death, birth, death, birth, on and on as the Earth slowly drifted around its mother star countless times. And when I ask of their suffering God states that all is good.

The more I watched the more I grew to know anger and frustration. This gift of life that another Angel had called it was more like a punishment, a sentence, but these beings did nothing to deserve this. Nothing! They were products of God’s created evolution, unknowing, helpless, isolated beings who suffered the heat, the cold, hunger, predators, disease, change, birth, and death, yet innocent of all sources of pain. They were born into this bondage called life. They were victims, each and every one of them. And all victims have a predator looking to gain something from the victim’s suffering. God was beginning to appear to me like the Earth’s predator, looking to gain something from the beings that inhabited this planet. But what did God want? What did God need to gain from this creation?

I felt ashamed of my thoughts, but I could not stop them. I felt as if a war was beginning to wage within me. I was present at the edge of a forest, near the beautiful site of water rushing off the edge of a cliff into the continuing flow of the river below. Waves caressed the stone shore, slowly smoothing and reshaping it. The sun beat down hard, sparkling off the water’s surface as colorful autumn leaves fell from the trees and floated downstream. Earthly paradise, I thought to myself. Yes, this was easy to see. Yet the suffering that takes place here. No! No! This was no paradise!

This was the moment I realized I doubted my love for creation. I doubted my love for God. I felt alone and isolated. I thought to myself, Am I the only one who...

Suddenly, before I could finish my thought, I felt a presence.

You have been silent for some time now, the Angel said. How long are you going to hold your thoughts to yourself?

It was Michael, in all his wisdom and obedience.

I do not think you want to know my thoughts, I said, certain that he could feel my own fear of them. 

You still doubt the goodness of this creation, don’t you?

Can you show me its goodness? I questioned with a hidden courage, yet with hesitation, fearing I had already said too much. But we both knew the answer to this question as God never revealed the goodness to us.

Then Michael, fearing my answer, asked the question he truly wanted to know, Then you lack trust in the Creator?

Though my answer was simple, I could not bring myself to declare it. It may have been true that I could not understand this mystery of creation as God understood, but for God to remain silent about these mysteries, I could not help but become suspicious, and suspicion breeds lack of trust. When God did not answer my questions, my prayers, my begging, I wondered about the motive behind this atrocity, this experiment in suffering.

My silence was my answer, and Michael understood.

You are wise enough to know that we cannot understand this creation as God does, Michael broke the silence, but your lack of trust will prevent you from ever finding the answers. It has already cost you your patience. Now it seeks to cost you your wisdom, then your sanity.

Just like the Earth creatures? I responded quickly.

Just have faith, Lucifer, trust in God, Michael encouraged me again.

I seek only to increase my wisdom and my sanity remains intact, I responded impatiently. How can I blindly trust a God that creates this kind of world and is answerless of its pains? My frustration comes from needing to know its goodness or the reason for the suffering, and my impatience from a Creator that does not give answers, or perhaps does not have answers. It is too late for me to be comforted by trust.

I paused then spoke to Michael more directly saying, "Perhaps you truly believe trust will lead you to the answers; or perhaps you do not care to know the answers. Maybe you are too afraid that without trust God will be displeased with you. Trust was never an option for me. The answerless pain that I see before us erases all the comfort trust can bring, and places the goodness of creation under the eyes of skepticism.

"Trust is dangerous when it dulls curiosity and hinders questioning, eventually reducing all curiosity and skepticism to a mindless blind faith. Trust is a place to ease discomfort against the winds of doubt, an anchor to hold on to the feeling of love and goodness when all we see upon the Earth is suffering.

"I want to see the Earth for what it truly is, whether it is goodness or tragedy. I have to know Michael, and I cannot simply hope the answers will come to me. How long must we wait? How long must they suffer before God reveals its purpose? How long must we wait before God reveals the goodness to us? Perhaps the truth is not knowable, but I want to reach my potential of knowing. Where is the boundary of what we can and cannot know? I want to find that boundary Michael!"

I suddenly realized how different I was from the other Angels. The others trusted God and the goodness of creation blindly, without really knowing. They were satisfied to watch all these creatures suffer and not know why, or at least they pretended they were content in their ignorance.

Michael seemed pathetic to me now, colored by a blind, seemingly patient, obedience. I began to ask myself, Does God require this obedience from us or is it us that believes God requires this obedience, this passive trust? My deeper trust was that I believed God wanted me to find answers to these mysteries, even the mystery of God.

I knew my thoughts were unique, or at least I was the only one to embrace them. Like the creation of the physical universe, I looked upon God as a mystery too, a feeling all other Angels, if they had such a feeling, would not dare speak of. Though I grew impatient and often seemingly distrustful, I had faith that this was the path that God expected me to take. I began to feel a sense of destiny.

I hope that you find the answers you are looking for, Michael said, and that your frustration ceases through those findings before it destroys you.

What do you mean, destroys me? I asked.

You are not alone in your questioning, Lucifer. Azza, Mephistopheles, Danjal, Turel, and many others approached this mystery as you have, and many have lost their sense of identity. They have gone mad, not knowing who they are anymore. They talk of feeling empty and are consumed with anger and frustration. We believe they are in a process of self-destruction. We do not know how much longer they can exist in their condition. We do not know what will happen to them and I do not want to see this happen to—

Where are they, I interrupted; pleased to know I was not alone in my thinking, the others who question as I do? Where can I find them?

First let us finish discussing our thoughts with each other then I will bring you to them. Tell me what troubles you so much that you are kept in silence. What happened to the playful charming Lucifer that led us into the discovery of many mysteries? Michael asked.

I could tell the Angel had been worrying about me, perhaps even missing me. So I spoke softly yet truthfully, "I am the same curious Angel as before. My curiosity is what led us on many adventures. The difference is that you feel my curiosity has gone too far, beyond what we are capable of or permitted to know. And now I am alone with my curiosity, shunned by those of you who think I ask too much, as if the understanding of the goodness in suffering is forbidden. I want to understand this goodness. When I see the suffering I have doubts that it exists. I do not know why but I need to understand. That is my motive. It is quite simple."

And I continued with more intensity, "There is an ominous feeling about this place called Earth. The suffering has made me feel that something has always been absent, even in us Angels, we were just too joyful to feel it before. Without understanding the goodness of it all the suffering seems so meaningless. Without understanding I feel incomplete. An empty feeling lingers inside me. There has never been true happiness and joy for us, because we do not know what God knows. There was always something missing in us. Now with the awareness of suffering my joy has lost its luster. Simply trusting in the goodness is not enough. I need to know it. I need to know what cannot be known or this feeling of incompleteness will forever linger inside of me. I need to feel full and complete, not just believe the answers and feeling of completeness is there waiting for us in some distant uncertain future.

It is you Michael, who has stopped asking the questions. When God tells you that you are not capable of understanding as the Creator does, you give in and ask no more. How can you be satisfied in those shadows? You accept that all is good and suffocate any curiosity that may still be alive in you. This is my outrage, that I have become known in a negative light for my curiosity, my need to know what is unknowable. Not even you Michael, the most obedient of all Angels, can deny your curiosity, your need to know, to understand the truth and motivation of it all. What is its goodness? What is the boundary of what we can and cannot understand? And why would God create such a boundary? Why are we not limitless also? Is there such a thing as too much wisdom, or is God afraid to loose control if we know what God knows? Why would God create us and keep us in this darkness? Obedience as you live it, Michael, is in denial of who we are and why God created us. My obedience is to understand this creation. I believe God wants us to know, yet on that path to understanding I cannot help but doubt its goodness when the secrets are so deeply hidden from our view.

As my thoughts caught up to me concerning what I had just said, I was struck with the most shocking, thought-provoking question yet. How could I have never questioned this before? I thought to myself, all that has passed and all that I have learned and I missed the most basic question of all. Why had God created the very first creation, the Angels, why were we, I and Michael, and the others created in the first place? Was something lacking in God that God needed us, or perhaps God simply was alone and needed to show creation to others, others who could investigate, learn, and appreciate this—

Suddenly I realized Michael was responding to my honest yet harsh statement, the Angel’s thoughts faded into my awareness,  ...curiosity in me but I trust God, and when God is ready to reveal these secrets to us God will.

I pondered over this beautiful obedient personality known as Michael. I remembered all the adventures we shared discovering new worlds and solving countless mysteries of the universes. What has happened to this Angel, the lack of ambition, withered away by a flame of trust, the curiosity hidden behind a veil of what this Angel thinks trust and obedience to be?

I gathered what I could from the limited response I took in and formed my thoughts, though I was anxious to meet the others who follow a similar path as I have. When have we ever relied upon God for answers to the universes’ mysteries? We have always found our own answers. Now we face the mystery of the Earth’s goodness.

This is different, you know that, Michael pleaded as if sensing something atrocious was about to happen to me, as if understanding that there was no turning back for me. Remember, the understanding of this mystery is beyond simple, intellectual investigation. We must trust God and wait. Be careful. You have grown much too impatient, Lucifer. I do not want to see you go mad like the others.

We moved on through the forest, silent but with much to say. We both shared in the beauty of the wind twisting and turning through the colorful yet half-naked trees. We shared in the confusion of the suffering of birth, life, death, and decay that occurred under the brightly colored leaves on the forest’s floor. The difference was that through Michael’s senses, though lost in confusion, there was trust that all was good. But through my senses reined a tyranny of frustration, doubt, and even loneliness. I realized, though I was with my most intimate companion, we were bound to silence as if an invisible, impenetrable wall had been built by our differences, and I knew it saddened the both of us equally. 

I appreciated Michael’s concern for me but the Angel’s words felt meaningless and dull. I was not about to give in to silent obedience as Michael has done. The endless silence, not knowing, and curiosity would cause me madness itself. I never had a choice!

*

We moved into storm clouds where beauty and destruction have always co-existed without suffering, then, as if they were our doorway, we silently passed through to the others.

We Angels gathered in silence attuned to the tension that vibrated among us.  Never has there been a time such as this. I felt sadness, separated from my dearest companions, alone among their presence. I eagerly waited to hear them converse about their feelings to know that I was not alone.

We began the lengthy dialogue one by one. I remained silent and listened attentively to each.

God has created this world there is no question on that matter, and there is no question that we as Angels cannot understand this world as God understands it, Lameck said to everyone. We have witnessed many creations and never asked, what is the purpose? Why is this being created? We simply enjoyed the multiplicity and complexity of each wondrous creation. Now we have come upon a creation that we cannot understand in the same light. It has become so controversial to us that we now ask why existence itself was created. What is it exactly that has brought us to this questioning?

I believe it is the not-knowing that drives us to question. The fact that we cannot understand as God understands but we wish to do so. It is that simple, Harut said.

We have always questioned when we wanted to understand some mystery of creation. That is nothing new, Glaras said, then added, But that we cannot solve this riddle leaves us with the choice of having faith in God that someday we will understand, or accepting that we will never understand.

I think it is the suffering aspect alone that causes us to see this world, Earth, in a different light. We have never understood the consciousness of physical beings as we do now, with their complex sensation and awareness. But it is the suffering of these beings that leads us to question everything. If they were not suffering we would simply enjoy their existence, as we do all other things, Aros said.

It is the silence of God that makes this mystery more enigmatic than any others, Danjal interestingly said. I could feel this Angel’s doubt; it reflected my own darkened feelings.

God has always been silent and let us learn for ourselves, Harut argued. We learn through our own observation. We have observed all over the universes that it is through the destruction of something that leads to a new creation. Earth and Earth’s creatures are created with these same principles. All is one giant play of matter continuously flowing and changing. There—

Yes, and we always trusted that it was good, Jukar interrupted. Now it has become more complex. Beings with overwhelming emotions and limited awareness have arisen. But there is no reason to doubt its goodness.

I agree, they may feel suffering but they are no different from the rest of the universes design. When a star dies we do not cry out for its suffering, Johiel said.

They may have come from the stars, but they are not the same as a star. These creatures are conscious and unaware of their connectedness. They are bound to suffer until the Earth cannot support them, perhaps longer, Mordad added. 

You do not know that, Glaras said. They may even become aware of God.

They are too caught up in supporting their physical flesh to even entertain the possibility, Mordad continued.

The Angel’s comment must have disturbed the comfort of Michael’s blind obedience.

I do not see the reason for this dialogue, Michael spoke. "God is filled with goodness and gives love to all things. If God created this world then there is nothing to question. Faith