...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...
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