095. Holy Week

A timeline with scriptures of the week before Christ's resurrection : https://www.thoughtco.com/holy-week-timeline-700618

094. Unto Others

One of the best aspects of my professional career is the opportunity to work with others collaboratively on various projects. I enjoy working on a diversity of projects with a diversity of people because I am enriched by the process. There is always something to learn from every interaction or from the way someone else does, thinks, or says about something. Good things can be gained from even the most boring of situations if you're on the lookout. 

This doesn’t mean it’s always easy to work with others. It can be extremely challenging and frustrating to collaborate with other people or work on a group project. Every person is different, with different backgrounds, experiences, viewpoints, knowledge, levels of motivation, etc. My work would probably be a lot simpler and more effective if I just went off alone and did my own thing by myself. I’ve done that and have found that my life is much less interesting and boring without others being involved; and I think in the long run, my creative potential is less fulfilled without the input of others. 

More to the point, I think my own work is much, much better as I’ve listened to and incorporated the influences of others. I’ve noticed that when I pay special attention to those who are also willing to listen to others, I often gain the most from them as they have spent considerable time gleaning the “best of” from those around them in terms of whatever it is they do. Of course, you need to sift through whatever someone is sharing or preaching, and determine if it’s worth keeping. But even going through that process has helped me become better in my work and more informed. I’ve tried some things others have shared with me that sounded like great ideas, but turned out to be disasters. I’ve learned from these experiences too. I’m grateful for those who have made sacrifices to share the work that they have done with others, and to share their perspectives, instead of just keeping it to themselves and ignoring the rest of the world. I am better for it.

093. Forgiveness

092. satan, the great orator: Part IV - "There is No Other Way"

...continuing the conversation between Weston and the Green Lady. This is long, but well worth the read, especially if you have or are facing something that is causing you confusion. Weston continues to degrade into a non-human entity during the conversation. Ransom cannot contain himself any longer...

“Do not listen to him,” broke in Ransom; “send him away. Do not hear what he says, do not think of it."

[Ransom has the right idea. Do not listen to satan, or his emissaries. Send them away. They have no power over you save what you give them. How do you know that someone is a true messenger? Be careful who you listen to and obey.]

“I do not want you to hear him at all,” said Ransom. “He is—” and then he hesitated. ‘Bad’, ‘liar’, ‘enemy’, none of these words would, as yet, have any meaning for her. Racking his brains he thought of their previous conversation about the great eldil who had held on to the old good and refused the new one. Yes; that would be her only approach to the idea of badness. He was just about to speak but it was too late. Weston’s voice anticipated him. 

[Interesting insight into satan's (the "great eldil's" or great angel's) fall..."he held on to the old good and refused the new one"] 

“This Piebald [Ransom],” it [Weston] said, “does not want you to hear me, because he wants to keep you young. He does not want you to go on to the new fruits that you have never tasted before.”

[satan continually uses the concept that God wants us to progress to infer that we need to become independent from Him even if that means breaking a commandment. he lies that that God's commandments are meant to be broken as we ascend, that "lower" commandments no longer apply to us as "higher" commandments and concepts come to the fore. he lies to us that the scriptures are dead and no longer apply, that there are 'higher ways' to access God-like knowledge that require behavior that is contrary to God's laws. It is all a lie.]

“He is what in my world we call Bad,” said Weston’s body. “One who rejects the fruit he is given for the sake of the fruit he expected or the fruit he found last time.”

[satan is able to turn things around, calling good, evil, and evil, good.] 

“And will you teach us Death?” said the Lady to Weston’s shape, where it stood above her. 

“Yes,” it said, “it is for this that I came here, that you may have Death in abundance. But you must be very courageous.”

[satan brings death, in abundance. he ultimately inspires murder and destruction among those that hearken to him.]

“Courageous. What is that?”

“It is what makes you to swim on a day when the waves are so great and swift that something inside you bids you to stay on land.”

“I know. And those are the best days of all for swimming.”

“Yes. But to find Death, and with Death the real oldness and the strong beauty and the uttermost branching out, you must plunge into things greater than waves.”

“Go on. Your words are like no other words that I have ever heard. They are like the bubble breaking on the tree. They make me think of — of — I do not know what they make me think of.”

[Have you ever experienced this? Deep wisdom from a source you thought was of God, but was not? Words that fill you with awe and delight, but also lack light? That bring confusion? "I do not know what they make me think of" -- exactly, because they are spiritually novel, cut-off from God, and appeal to a baser-self. They often foment desire and vainglory.]

“I will speak greater words than these; but I must wait till you are older.”

“Make me older.”

[She is drawn in, hooked. The Lady has tasted something new. She has hearkened and is seduced by his vast knowledge and wisdom. he is now teaching her things she had never before contemplated and it is becoming "delicious to the taste and very desirable." She is under his spell and fading into trance.] 

“Lady, Lady,” broke in Ransom, “will not Maleldil make you older in His own time and His own way, and will not that be far better?”

[In the knick of time. Many believe that Adam and Eve were destined to partake of the fruit, thus believing in satan's ruse that "there was no other way". The current President of the LDS church teaches such a false thing..."the fortunate Fall" as he calls it, which is paramount to teaching that satan's lie in the Garden was true. It is not. The post-2014 temple films depict Eve as understanding she must engage in sin in order to realize God's will. It is false doctrine depicted as truth. If Adam and Eve had not partaken of the fruit the outcome for this world would have differed considerably. They could have continued to learn from God directly, from His own voice, rather than being cast out of His presence. More on this later.]

Weston’s face did not turn in his direction either at this point or at any other time during the conversation, but his voice, addressed wholly to the Lady, answered Ransom’s interruption.

[The adversary is focused on his prey, locked in, studying its every move for any sign of weakness or vulnerability.]

“You see?” it said. “He himself, though he did not mean nor wish to do so, made you see a few days ago that Maleldil is beginning to teach you to walk by yourself, without holding you by the hand. That was the first branching out. When you came to know that, you were becoming really old. And since then Maleldil has let you learn much — not from His own voice, but from mine. You arc becoming your own. That is what Maleldil wants you to do. That is why He has let you be separated from the King and even, in a way, from Himself. His way of making you older is to make you make yourself older. And yet this Piebald would have you sit still and wait for Maleldil to do it all.” 

[satan deceives those that listen to him that God wants us to be separate from Him so that we grow and advance to be like Him. he lies and portrays himself as God's instrument, doing God's bidding.] 

“Go on,” said the Lady.

“Then listen,” said Weston’s body. “Have you understood that to wait for Maleldil’s voice when Maleldil wishes you to walk on your own is a kind of disobedience?”

[satan uses twisted logic to try to separate us from God. he lies and tells us that waiting for God's voice instead of acting on our own is disobedience to God.]

“I think I have.”

“The wrong kind of obeying itself can be a disobeying.”

The Lady thought for a few moments and then clapped her hands. “I see,” she said, “I see! Oh, how old you make me. Before now I have chased a beast for mirth. And it has understood and run away from me. If it had stood still and let me catch it, that would have been a sort of obeying — but not the best sort.”

“You understand very well. When you are fully grown you will be even wiser and more beautiful than the women of my own world. And you see that it might be so with Maleldil’s biddings.”

“I think I do not see quite clearly.”

“Are you certain that He really wishes to be always obeyed?”

“How can we not obey what we love?”

“The beast that ran away loved you.”

“I wonder,” said the Lady, “if that is the same. The beast knows very well when I mean it to run away and when I want it to come to me. But Maleldil has never said to us that any word or work of His was a jest. How could our Beloved need to jest or frolic as we do? He is all a burning joy and a strength. It is like thinking that He needed sleep or food.”

“No, it would not be a jest. That is only a thing like it, not the thing itself. But could the taking away of your hand from His — the full growing up — the walking in your own way — could that ever be perfect unless you had, if only once, seemed to disobey Him?”

[satan still driving at the importance of independence from God to be like Him or to fully love Him] 

“How could one seem to disobey?”

“By doing what He only seemed to forbid. There might be a commanding which He wished you to break.”

["Seem". satan tries to diminish the ramifications of disobeying God. You cannot "seemingly" break a commandment. Breaking a commandment is breaking a commandment. No matter how you justify it or twist it to seem like a noble act. It is not. It is sin.] 

“But if He told us we were to break it, then it would be no command. And if He did not, how should we know?”

“How wise you are growing, beautiful one,” said Weston’s mouth.

“No. If He told you to break what He commanded, it would be no true command, as you have seen. For you are right. He makes no jests. A real disobeying, a real branching out, this is what He secretly longs for: secretly, because to tell you would spoil all.”

[satan and his followers pretend what they teach is part of some deeper secret, underlying the truth of God's plan.]

“I begin to wonder,” said the Lady after a pause, “whether you are so much older than I. Surely what you are saying is like fruit with no taste! How can I step out of His will save into something that cannot be wished? Shall I start trying not to love Him — or the King — or the beasts? It would be like trying to walk on water or swim through islands. Shall I try not to sleep or to drink or to laugh? I thought your words had a meaning. But now it seems they have none. To walk out of His will is to walk into nowhere.”

[The Lady correctly equates obedience to God's commandments with love of God. It is obedience to God's commandments that brings peace, joy, understanding, knowledge, and wisdom....not breaking them.] 

“That is true of all His commands except one.”

[satan does not relent. Like gradually increasing the gas on the stove to slowly raise the heat, the web he weaves begins to expand in complexity. The more we listen and try to argue with him, the more he twists and draws us in. He has vast knowledge of this and other worlds, the arguments and discussions of high and holy councils, the plan of God, etc. He uses all of that knowledge against us.]

“But can that one be different?”

“Nay, you see of yourself that it is different. These other commands of His — to love, to sleep, to fill this world with your children — you see for yourself that they are good. And they are the same in all worlds. But the command against living on the Fixed Island is not so. You have already learned that He gave no such command to my world. And you cannot see where the goodness of it is. No wonder. If it were really good, must He not have commanded it to all worlds alike? For how could Maleldil not command what was good? There is no good in it. Maleldil Himself is showing you that, this moment, through your own reason. It is mere command. It is forbidding for the mere sake of forbidding.”

“But why…?”

“In order that you may break it. What other reason can there be? It is not good. It is not the same for other worlds. It stands between you and all settled life, all command of your own days. Is not Maleldil showing you as plainly as He can that it was set up as a test — as a great wave you have to go over, that you may become really old, really separate from Him.”

[satan uses the true concepts of sacrifice and Abrahamic tests to deceive us into disobeying God's commandments. When we do so, we are really obeying satan and not God.] 

“But if this concerns me so deeply, why does He put none of this into my mind? It is all coming from you. Stranger. There is no whisper, even, of the Voice saying Yes to your words.”

[She holds to the truth and true ways of discerning truth. But satan always, always has a greater counter argument.]

“But do you not see that there cannot be? He longs — oh, how greatly He longs to see His creature become fully itself, to stand up in its own reason and its own courage even against Him. But how can He tell it to do this? That would spoil all. Whatever it did after that would only be one more step taken with Him. This is the one thing of all the things He desires in which He must have no finger. Do you think He is not weary of seeing nothing but Himself in all that He has made? If that contented Him, why should He create at all? To find the Other — the thing whose will is no longer His — that is Maleldil’s desire.”

[satan deceives by saying that others must be sent to teach us that we often must break God's commandments in order to grow and ascend, because God cannot ask us to break them, but that this is what God longs for in order for us to be like Him.]

“If I could but know this—”

“He must not tell you. He cannot tell you. The nearest He can come to telling you is to let some other creature tell it for Him. And behold. He has done so. Is it for nothing, or without His will, that I have journeyed through Deep Heaven to teach you what He would have you know but must not teach you Himself?” 

[satan and his servants, even unwitting ones, claim or pretend that they are true messengers, teaching something on God's errand in a way that is unique to his/satan's relationship to you - that only he alone can convey because of his position. This is a lie.]

Lady,” said Ransom, “if I speak, will you hear me?”

“Gladly, Piebald.”

“This man has said that the law against living on the Fixed Island is different from the other Laws, because it is not the same for all worlds and because we cannot see the goodness in it. And so far he says well. But then he says that it is thus different in order that you may disobey it. But there might be another reason.”

“Say it. Piebald.”

“I think He made one law of that kind in order that there might be obedience. In all these other matters what you call obeying Him is but doing what seems good in your own eyes also. Is love content with that? You do them, indeed, because they are His will, but not only because they are His will. Where can you taste the joy of obeying unless He bids you do something for which His bidding is the only reason? When we spoke last you said that if you told the beasts to walk on their heads, they would delight to do so. So I know that you understand well what I am saying.”

“Oh, brave Piebald,” said the Green Lady, “this is the best you have said yet. This makes me older far: yet it does not feel like the oldness this other is giving me. Oh, how well I see it! We cannot walk out of Maleldil’s will: but He has given us a way to walk out of our will. And there could be no such way except a command like this. Out of our own will. It is like passing out through the world’s roof into Deep Heaven. All beyond is Love Himself. I knew there was joy in looking upon the Fixed Island and laying down all thought of ever living there, but I did not till now understand.”

[She returns to peace from of confusion. For now, she is holding on to the understanding that only by operating within God's will, keeping His commandments, will we have joy and peace.]  

Her face was radiant as she spoke, but then a shade of bewilderment crossed it. “Piebald,” she said, “if you are so young, as this other says, how do you know these things?”

“He says I am young, but I say not.”

The voice of Weston’s face spoke suddenly, and it was louder and deeper than before and less like Weston’s voice. “I am older than he,” it said, “and he dare not deny it. Before the mothers of the mothers of his mother were conceived, I was already older than he could reckon. I have been with Maleldil in Deep Heaven where he never came and heard the eternal councils. And in the order of creation I am greater than he, and before me he is of no account. Is it not so?”

[satan shows his hand a bit.] 

The corpse-like face did not even now turn towards him, but the speaker and the Lady both seemed to wait for Ransom to reply. The falsehood which sprang to his mind died on his lips. In that air, even when truth seemed fatal,

only truth would serve. Licking his lips and choking down a feeling of nausea, he answered: “In our world to be older is not always to be wiser.”

“Look on him,” said Weston’s body to the Lady; “consider how white his cheeks have turned and how his forehead is wet. You have not seen such things before: you will see them more often hereafter. It is what happens — it is the beginning of what happens — to little creatures when they set themselves against great ones.”

[satan points to his greatness, his status, and his "rights", which have been denied due to his rebellion.] 

An exquisite thrill of fear travelled along Ransom’s spine. What saved him was the face of the Lady. Untouched by the evil so close to her, removed as it were ten years’ journey deep within the region of her own innocence, and by that innocence at once so protected and so endangered, she looked up at the standing Death above her, puzzled indeed, but not beyond the bounds of cheerful curiosity, and said: “But he was right. Stranger, about this forbidding. It is you who need to be made older. Can you not see?”

“I have always seen the whole whereof he sees but the half. It is most true that Maleldil has given you a way of walking out of your own will — but out of your deepest will.” 

“And what is that?”

“Your deepest will, at present, is to obey Him — to be always as you are now, only His beast or His very young child. The way out of that is hard. It was made hard that only the very great, the very wise, the very courageous should dare to walk in it, to go on — on out of this smallness in which you now live through the dark wave of His forbidding, into the real life. Deep Life, with all its joy and splendour and hardness.”

[He turns things around, trying now to raise within the Lady that some injustice has occurred by virtue of God's position relative to our own -- that we are only a beast, a child, acting "small", etc. That we need to overcome the position we find ourselves in to become like Him. It is false. Ransom tries to counter with the truth...]

“Listen, Lady,” said Ransom. “There is something he is not telling you. All this that we are now talking has been talked before. The thing he wants you to try has been tried before. Long ago, when our world began, there was only one man and one woman in it, as you and the King are in this. And there once before he stood, as he stands now, talking to the woman. He had found her alone as he has found you alone. And she listened, and did the thing Maleldil had forbidden her to do. But no joy and splendour came of it. What came of it I

cannot tell you because you have no image of it in your mind. But all love was troubled and made cold, and Maleldil’s voice became hard to hear so that wisdom grew little among them; and the woman was against the man and the mother against the child; and when they looked to eat there was no fruit on their trees, and hunting for food took all their time, so that their life became narrower, not wider.”

“He has hidden the half of what happened,” said Weston’s corpselike mouth. “Hardness came out of it but also splendour. They made with their own hands mountains higher than your Fixed Island. They made for themselves Floating Islands greater than yours which they could move at will through the ocean faster than any bird can fly. Because there was not always food enough, a woman could give the only fruit to her child or her husband and eat death instead — could give them all, as you in your little narrow life of playing and kissing and riding fishes have never done, nor shall do till you break the commandment. Because knowledge was harder to find, those few who found it became beautiful and excelled their fellows as you excel the beasts; and thousands were striving for their love…”

[satan twists the state of our fallen world, its supposed "greatness", as an exemplar to be emulated....making tall mountains (buildings), floating islands (ships)...equating starvation with sacrifice...there is nothing in Babylon to be emulated.]  

“I think I will go to sleep now,” said the Lady quite suddenly. Up to this point she had been listening to Weston’s body with open mouth and wide eyes, but as he spoke of the women with the thousands of lovers she yawned, with the unconcealed and unpremeditated yawn of a young cat.

“Not yet,” said the other. “There is more… He has not told you that it was this breaking of the commandment which brought Maleldil to our world and because of which He was made man. He dare not deny it.”

[he has saved one of the greatest twists for last: that breaking the commandment will bring something better.]

“Do you say this. Piebald?” asked the Lady.

Ransom was sitting with his fingers locked so tightly that his knuckles were white. The unfairness of it all was wounding him like barbed wire. Unfair … . unfair. How could Maleldil expect him to fight against this, to fight with every weapon taken from him, forbidden to lie and yet brought to places where truth seemed fatal? It was unfair! A sudden impulse of hot rebellion arose in him. A second later, doubt, like a huge wave, came breaking over him. How if the enemy were right after all? Felix peccatum Adae. [meaning: "O happy sin of Adam"] Even the Church would tell him that good came of disobedience in the end. Yes, and it was true too that he, Ransom, was a timid creature, a man who shrank back from new and hard things. On which side, after all, did the temptation lie? Progress passed before his eyes in a great momentary vision: cities, armies, tall ships, and libraries and fame, and the grandeur of poetry spurting like a fountain out of the labours and ambitions of men. Who could be certain that Creative Evolution was not the deepest truth? From all sorts of secret crannies in his own mind whose very existence he had never before suspected, something wild and heady and delicious began to rise, to pour itself towards the shape of Weston. ‘It is a spirit, it is a spirit,’ said this inner voice, ‘and you are only a man. It goes on from century to century. You are only a man…

[The battle against satan can seem unfair. That is why I am posting these conversations. So you can understand what you are up against. he has gone on "from century to century"...remember, "it is [only] a spirit", animating whatever host has acquiesced to his possession. Do not surrender one inch to his logic or twisting truths.] 

“Do you say this. Piebald?” asked the Lady a second time. The spell was broken.

“I will tell you what I say,” answered Ransom, jumping to his feet. “Of course good came of it. Is Maleldil a beast that we can stop His path, or a leaf that we can twist His shape? Whatever you do. He will make good of it. But not the good He had prepared for you if you had obeyed Him. That is lost for ever. The first King and first Mother of our world did the forbidden thing, and He brought good of it in the end. But what they did was not good, and what they lost we have not seen. And there were some to whom no good came nor ever will come.”

[And therein lies the rub, "Whatever you do. He will make good of it. But not the good He had prepared for you if you had obeyed Him. That is lost for ever." We will never know what good might have come had we always remained in obedience. There is loss. But thanks be to God that He can make good of our evil IF we turn to Him and seek His presence.]

He turned to the body of Weston. “You,” he said, “tell her all. What good came to you? Do you rejoice that Maleldil became a man? Tell her of your joys, and of what profit you had when you made Maleldil and death acquainted.”

[Ransom, in an inspired counter to all of "Weston's" twisted logic, skewers his opponent with the most damning truth of all -- that satan was defeated because Christ succeeded in His mortal mission to overcome sin and death.]

In the moment that followed this speech two things happened that were utterly unlike terrestrial experience. The body that had been Weston’s threw up its head and opened its mouth and gave a long melancholy howl like a dog; and the Lady lay down, wholly unconcerned, and closed her eyes and was instantly asleep.

 ...to be continued...

091: satan, the great orator: Part III - Subtle Twists of Truth

Continuing from the book Perelandra by CS Lewis...later in the conversion between Ransom and Weston, Weston becomes further possessed, has a meltdown, and collapses. Ransom leaves him and seeks out the Green Lady. After some time searching for her, Ransom hears two voices, which turn out to be Weston and the Green Lady speaking to one another in “earnest conversation”. Ransom listens in.

First, a few names are refenced in this conversation:

1. Piebald: the Green Lady's nickname for Ransom.
2. Maleldil: think, Christ, who speaks to the Green Lady in her thoughts.
3. Eldila: think, angelic messengers.
4. The King: the male counterpart of the Green Lady; who the Green Lady was separated from and has been searching for.
5. The Fixed Land: Perelandra is a water world with a series of floating islands that move, however, there is one Fixed Land that does not move, but there is a commandment to not reside upon it. The Green Lady and the King were separated, in part, due to the floating islands, and the Fixed Land is the place where they could ultimately reside together. 

Secondly, light commentary in [brackets] -- the text speaks for itself and likely speaks to individuals differently depending on their experience and circumstance:

“I am wondering,” said the woman’s voice, “whether all the people of your world have the habit of talking about the same thing more than once. I have said already that we are forbidden to dwell on the Fixed Land. Why do you not either talk of something else or stop talking?”

[satan dwells continually on the same topic, speaks for long periods of time, repeating himself over and over again in an effort to wear down the hearer...until the temptation has been thoroughly overcome. On the other hand, God commands and then warns, but ultimately respects, to our blessing or demise, our choices. God is talkative, but He does not dominate and control the conversation...He is responsive.]

“Because this forbidding is such a strange one,” said the man’s [Weston's] voice. “And so unlike the ways of Maleldil in my world. And He has not forbidden you to think about dwelling on the Fixed Land.”

[satan tries to subtly nudge us towards that which will violate God's commands. satan tries to use God (Maleldil) in his calculations to deceive and lead atray]

“That would be a strange thing — to think about what will never happen.”

“Nay, in our world we do it all the time. We put words together to mean things that have never happened and places that never were: beautiful words, well put together. And then tell them to one another. We call it stories or poetry. In that old world you spoke of, Malacandra, they did the same. It is for mirth and wonder and wisdom.”

[satan often uses commonplace concepts or things we already accept and believe in, but miss-applies them in an attempt to deceive. he takes truths from stories and wisdom from myths and legends and uses them as a precedent for violating God's laws.]  

“What is the wisdom in it?” asked the Lady.

“Because the world is made up not only of what is, but of what might be. Maleldil knows both and wants us to know both.”

“This is more than I ever thought of. The other — the Piebald one [Ransom] — has already told me things which made me feel like a tree whose branches were growing wider and wider apart. But this goes beyond all. Stepping out of what is into what might be and talking and making things out there… alongside the world. I will ask the King what he thinks of it.”

“You see, that is what we always come back to. If only you had not been parted from the King.”

“Oh, I see. That also is one of the things that might be. The world might be so made that the King and I were never parted.”

“The world would not have to be different — only the way you live. In a world where people live on the Fixed Lands they do not become suddenly separated.”

"But you remember we are not to live on the Fixed Land.”

“No, but He has never forbidden you to think about it. Might not that be one of the reasons why you are forbidden to do it — so that you may have a Might Be to think about, to make Story about as we call it?”

[satan tries to get us to think about breaking the commandments, to consider the possible outcomes of doing so, so that the possibility of breaking the commandments starts to enter reality. Rather, we should flee temptation, and not contemplate or consider it.]

“I will think more of this. I will get the King to make me older about it.”

["getting older" equates to becoming wise or experienced]

“How greatly I desire to meet this King of yours! But in the matter of Stories he may be no older than you himself.”

“That saying of yours is like a tree with no fruit. The King is always older than I, and about all things.”

“But Piebald and I have already made you older about certain matters which the King never mentioned to you. That is the new good which you never expected. You thought you would always learn all things from the King; but now Maleldil has sent you other men whom it had never entered your mind to think of and they have told you things the King himself could not know.”

[satan twists truth and makes his hearers believe that all knowledge is "new good" and should be believed and lived, regardless of its source or powers.] 

“I begin to see now why the King and I were parted at this time. This is a strange and great good He intended for me.” 

[satan hopes that we will believe that listening to him is good for us, that he is a source of reliable information and truth. he is not.]

“And if you refused to learn things from me and keep on saying you would wait and ask the King, would that not be like turning away from the fruit you had found to the fruit you had expected?”

[satan tries to get us to believe that the knowledge and information he is sharing is what God desires for us to receive, that he is a messenger from God. he is not. Everything he says is a lie.] 

“These are deep questions. Stranger. Maleldil is not putting much into my mind about them” said the Lady.

“Do you not see why?”

“No.”

“Since Piebald and I have come to your world we have put many things into your mind which Maleldil has not. Do you not see that He is letting go of your hand a little?”

“How could He? He is wherever we go.”

“Yes, but in another way. He is making you older — making you to learn things not straight from Him but by your own meetings with other people and your own questions and thoughts.”

“He is certainly doing that.”

[satan deceives us into believing that God wants us to grow up to be like God by becoming more independent from God. The silence of God that the Green Lady experienced is likely due to many things - one of which may be that a choice is being presented and she is required to use her intelligence and agency to choose for herself. satan tells us he has been sent to teach us truths that God has not or cannot teach for one reason or another. God works in order and by patterns...he sends authorized messengers with an authorized message, which does not point to the messenger as the source of the message (if that makes sense) and His message is consistent with other truths He has given.]

“Yes. He is making you a full woman, for up till now you were only half made — like the beasts who do nothing of themselves. This time, when you meet the King again, it is you who will have things to tell him. It is you who will be older than he and who will make him older.”

[satan tells us we need to become a real man or a real woman, to reach our "full potential" as human beings, according to the standards of the world, which means becoming superior in strength, knowledge, and power to others, whereas God wishes us to become as a little child...submissive, humble, pure, and full of love.]

“Maleldil would not make a thing like that happen. It would be like a fruit with no taste.”

“But it would have a taste for him. Do you not think the King must sometimes be tired of being the older? Would he not love you more if you were wiser than he?”

[satan tries to make us think that God really wants us to break His commandments in order to grow, whether it be out of a fake-sacrifice or for some fake-heroic good, because He wants us to grow up or "become older" (ie, wiser, more powerful or knowledgable), but He cannot suggest it, because He would be telling us to break His own commandment. God did not intend this, He really does not want us to break His commandments, despite how satan twists the truth of it.]

“Is this what you call a Poetry or do you mean that it really is?”

“I mean a thing that really is.”

“But how could anyone love anything more? It is like saying a thing could be bigger than itself.”

“I only meant you could become more like the women of my world.”

["my world" = Earth] 

“What are they like?”

“They are of a great spirit. They always reach out their hands for the new and unexpected good, and see that it is good long before the men understand it. Their minds run ahead of what Maleldil has told them. They do not need to wait for Him to tell them what is good, but know it for themselves as He does. They are, as it were, little Maleldils. And because of their wisdom, their beauty is as much greater than yours as the sweetness of these gourds surpasses the taste of water. And because of their beauty the love which the men have for them is as much greater than the King’s love for you as the naked burning of Deep Heaven seen from my world is more wonderful than the golden roof of yours.”

[satan tries to confuse us into thinking that being independent from God is being like God. It is not. When we are like God we are one with God, not free from Him. We are not "little gods" (ie, "little Maleldils) when we are free from God. satan equates freedom with being like God. satan tries to instill a fear that you will be less than what you are and what your potential portends if you do not break free and become independent like God is. satan has broken free and become independent from God and finds himself in constant misery in his current state.]

“I wish I could see them.”

“I wish you could.”

“How beautiful is Maleldil and how wonderful are all His works! Perhaps He will bring out of me daughters as much greater than I as I am greater than the beasts. It will be better than I thought. I had thought I was to be always Queen and Lady. But I see now that I may be as the eldila. I may be appointed to cherish when they are small and weak children who will grow up and overtop me and at whose feet I shall fall. I see it is not only questions and thoughts that grow out wider and wider like branches. Joy also widens out and comes where we had never thought.”

“It is a great branching out,” it [Weston] was saying. “This making of story or poetry about things that might be but are not. If you shrink back from it, are you not drawing back from the fruit that is offered you?”

“It is not from the making a story that I shrink back, O Stranger,” she answered, “but from this one story that you have put into my head. I can make myself stories about my children or the King. I can make it that the fish fly and the land beasts swim. But if I try to make the story about living on Fixed Land I do not know how to make it about Maleldil. For if I make it that He has changed His command, that will not go. And if I make it that we are living there against His command, that is like making the sky all black and the water so that we cannot drink it and the air so that we cannot breathe it. But also, I do not see what is the pleasure of trying to make these things.”

“To make you wiser, older,” said Weston’s body.

“Do you know for certain that it will do that?” she asked.

“Yes, for certain,” it replied. ‘That is how the women of my world have become so great and so beautiful.”

[satan twists the truth to deceive. he equates the breaking of a commandment, becoming independent, and letting go of God's hand as a necessary ("there is no other way") step in the gaining of wisdom, knowledge, and power. It is a lie.]

...to be continued...

090. satan, the great orator: Part II - Who's Voice Are We Listening To?

The following is part of an early conversation had between the only two human characters, both male, in Perelandra, the 2nd book of CS Lewis' Space Trilogy (1943): Elwin Ransom and Weston. Ransom agreed to be taken from Earth to the planet Perelandra by heavenly beings, the "Powers of Heaven," who had a mission for him to fulfill. He arrives alone and naked, and feels a clarity and peace of conscience as he has never before experienced. After exploring Perelandra for some time, experiencing its climate, and interacting with its animal life and vegetation, he encounters a naked woman who is in harmony with all nature, referred to throughout the book as "the Green Lady". Weston enters the scene soon after, having crash-landed his spacecraft on the planet. Ransom, a professor of linguistics, knew Weston, a physicist, from Earth, and of his evil intentions, as evidenced by what happened to them in another world, Malacandra. And so it went...

“That, if you will permit me to say so, is one of the real weaknesses of organised religion — that adherence to formulae, that failure to recognise one’s own friends. God is a spirit. Ransom. Get hold of that. You’re familiar with that already. Stick to it. God is a spirit.” [said Weston]

“Well, of course. But what then?” [said Ransom]

“What then? Why, spirit-mind-freedom-spontaneity — that’s what I’m talking about. That is the goal towards which the whole cosmic process is moving. The final disengagement of that freedom, that spirituality, is the work — to which I dedicate my own life and the life of humanity. The goal. Ransom, the goal: think of it! Pure spirit: the final vortex of self-thinking, self-originating activity.”...

“By the way,” said Ransom, “is it in any sense at all personal — is it alive?”...

“Yes,” said Weston, “I couldn’t have believed, myself, till recently. Not a person, of course. Anthropomorphism is one of the childish diseases of popular religion, but the opposite extreme of excessive abstraction has perhaps in the aggregate proved more disastrous. Call it a Force. A great, inscrutable Force, pouring up into us from the dark bases of being. A Force that can choose its instruments. It is only lately, Ransom, that I’ve learned from actual experience something which you have believed all your life as part of your religion.” Here he suddenly subsided again into a whisper—a croaking whisper unlike his usual voice. “Guided,” he said. “Chosen. Guided. I’ve become conscious that I’m a man set apart. Why did I do physics? Why did I discover the Weston rays? Why did I go to Malacandra? It-the Force-has pushed me on all the time. I’m being guided. I know now that I am the greatest scientist the world has yet produced. I’ve been made so for a purpose. It is through me that Spirit itself is at this moment pushing on to its goal.”

“Look here,” said Ransom, “one wants to be careful about this sort of thing. There are spirits and spirits, you know.”

“Eh?” said Weston. “What are you talking about?”

“I mean a thing might be a spirit and not good for you.”

“But I thought you agreed that Spirit was the good — the end of the whole process? I thought you religious people were all out for spirituality? What is the point of asceticism — fasts and celibacy and all that? Didn’t we agree that God is a spirit? Don’t you worship Him because He is pure spirit?”

“Good heavens, no! We worship Him because He is wise and good. There’s nothing specially fine about simply being a spirit. The Devil is a spirit.”...“What proof,” said Ransom, “what proof have you that you are being guided or supported by anything except your own individual mind and other people’s books?”

“You didn’t notice, dear Ransom,” said Weston, “that I’d improved a bit since we last met in my knowledge of extraterrestrial language. You are a philologist, they tell me.” 

Ransom started. “How did you do it?” he blurted out.

“Guidance, you know, guidance,” croaked Weston. He was squatting at the roots of his tree with his knees drawn up, and his face, now the colour of putty, wore a fixed and even slightly twisted grin. “Guidance. Guidance,” he went on. “Things coming into my head. I’m being prepared all the time. Being made a fit receptacle for it.”

“That ought to be fairly easy,” said Ransom impatiently. “If this Life Force is something so ambiguous that God and the Devil are equally good portraits of it, I suppose any receptacle is equally fit, and anything you can do is equally an expression of it.”

“There’s such a thing as the main current,” said Weston. “It’s a question of surrendering yourself to that — making yourself the conductor of the live, fiery, central purpose — becoming the very finger with which it reaches forward.”...

“How far does it go? Would you still obey the Life-Force if you found it prompting you to murder me?” asked Ransom

“Yes.”

“Or to sell England to the Germans?”

“Yes.”

“Or to print lies as serious research in a scientific periodical?”

“Yes.”

“God help you.” said Ransom.

As the story develops, we see how far Weston's possession by the dark side has gone. We will return to this story in subsequent posts as it serves to illustrate how satan is indeed the great orator who seeks to blind and deceive those who listen to his lies. Perhaps the foregoing is somewhat of an extreme example of how far things can go when one seeks to follow a voice that may not be God's. But, this happens all the time in our world. How many wars, feuds, disputes, contentions, jarrings, strifes, and disrupted and ended lives have come to pass because of someone claiming revelation over, or for, or contrary to another?

In any case, it is clear that there are many spirits that find place on this earth who are not on the "right side" of things. In fact, as lost and cast out spirits, they are on the wrong side, seeking control over the minds and hearts of the living because they have no body of their own to animate. Weston is right, spirit communication is real, and if we open ourselves up to whatever voice may come, we might find ourselves entertaining and possibly following all sorts of misleading voices that are not God's. Those on the wrong side have likely had thousands of years to perfect the subtlety, seductiveness, and verisimilitude of their voices and messages so that they imitate the real deal. Receiving true communication from God takes discernment, careful study, and a "firm mind in every form of Godliness". The scriptures lay out how the word, voice, and Spirit of God are obtained:

"...and they had waxed strong in the knowledge of the truth; for they were men of a sound understanding and they had searched the scriptures diligently, that they might know the word of God." Alma 17:2

"Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me. But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong;" Doctrine & Covenants 9:7-9 

"Seek not to declare my word, but first seek to obtain my word, and then shall your tongue be loosed; then, if you desire, you shall have my Spirit and my word, yea, the power of God unto the convincing of men." Doctrine & Covenants 11:21 

"...And how do ye suppose that I know of their surety? Behold, I say unto you they are made known unto me by the Holy Spirit of God. Behold, I have fasted and prayed many days that I might know these things of myself. And now I do know of myself that they are true; for the Lord God hath made them manifest unto me by his Holy Spirit; and this is the spirit of revelation which is in me." Alma 5: 45-46

"...they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God." Helaman 3:35

"...and they fasted much and prayed much that the Lord would grant unto them a portion of his Spirit to go with them, and abide with them, that they might be an instrument in the hands of God..." Alma 17:9

"Pray always, and I will pour out my Spirit upon you, and great shall be your blessing..." Doctrine & Covenants 19:38

"And thus we see that the Lord began to pour out his Spirit upon the Lamanites, because of their easiness and willingness to believe in his words." Helaman 6:36

"And behold, even at this time, ye have been calling on his name, and begging for a remission of your sins. And has he suffered that ye have begged in vain? Nay; he has poured out his Spirit upon you, and has caused that your hearts should be filled with joy, and has caused that your mouths should be stopped that ye could not find utterance, so exceedingly great was your joy." Mosiah 4:20

"These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." Acts 17:11

"Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me." John 5:39

So, from these verses, what are the keys to obtaining knowledge or revelation from God and hearing His voice?

• Study questions and ideas out in your mind.
• Study/search the scriptures diligently and daily.
• Pray always (ask/seek/call upon name of the Lord).
• Beg for a remission of your sins.
• Fast often.

Then it is promised that His Spirit will be poured out upon us, that He will bless us with knowledge of the truth pertaining to our salvation, that we will receive His word (it will be a part of us), and then loosen our tongues so we can speak His word to others to help orient them also to Christ. Then, as He continues to abide with us, we can truly become one in mind and purpose with Him. It is not always easy, and we are often desperate for a quick and easy answer to our problems and dilemmas. Yet, there are likely scores of spirits out there just waiting to give us their opinion of things. Why not use these problems and dilemmas as an opportunity to deepen our relationship with God and truly come to hear and know His real voice?