Interview With the Devil

KAREN: Should I call you Satan?

SATAN: King Satan or Prime Demonizer are my preference. I’ll also answer to Lord of Darkness or Our Unholy Earth Father.

KAREN: Okay, Satan it is. It’s so easy for our viewers to see the horrid acts you are responsible for in today’s world…

SATAN: Oh, thank you for the compliment. I’m so glad people are noticing my work today. Even someone in my position sometimes wonders if he’s truly making a difference.

KAREN: You consider what you do making a difference?

SATAN: Oh, yes! What would this world be without me? All harps and fluffy clouds and happy people and good apples. No! No! No! How boring would that be? A world without sin and chaos is no world at all. Sin! I hate that word! He (pointing up) came up with that word, you know. It just sounds bad – sssssin! Most people know it’s really just the fun the self-proclaimed Big Guy doesn’t want them to have.

KAREN: Let’s move on. Since your work today is so… vivid, let’s go back. What do you consider to be one of your most successful acts in Biblical times?

SATAN: Not counting the obvious?

KAREN: The obvious?

SATAN: Adam and Eve. My pride and joy. But everyone knows about them.

KAREN: Adam and Eve? But wasn’t God ultimately in control of…

SATAN: Wait! Wait! Yes! There is so much to choose from. But I am going to have to say Legion.

KAREN: The demoniac?

SATAN: Yes. Oh, wasn’t he just divine? Oh, bad word choice. Wasn’t he perfectly wretched? I didn’t just send one of my demons to possess him, you know. He had many weak spots, that man. I sent an entire legion of demons, and he let them right in. (laughing) People thought he was mad!

KAREN: Wasn’t he?

SATAN: It was the demons, really. Ah, they were just having some fun with him.

KAREN: Fun? He was living like an animal, Satan. He lived in the tombs, bound and shackled by the locals who were afraid of him. He’d break free and run naked out of the desert and into the town streets and attack people.

SATAN: (laughing) Oh, you should have seen it - the things they made him eat and do to himself. Funny stuff. Those demons were some of my best soldiers, but they knew how to have a good time.

KAREN: Even with all of Legion’s weaknesses, Jesus came along and saved and healed him, Satan.

SATAN: Yes. But my demons had a good time of it, and many of my demons today consider them heroes and are inspired by them. We may have lost Legion, but I'm sure my demons since then have gained so many more because of the accomplishments of Legion's demons.

KAREN: But didn’t Jesus destroy Legion's demons?

SATAN (fidgeting and nervous): You mean the pigs? That wasn’t Jesus, and it couldn’t have been foreseen. The demons decided to have some fun with the pigs. How could they have known the pigs were all going to drown themselves? But look at the havoc they wreaked with Legion before they perished. They were very worthy soldiers.

KAREN: Jesus sent them into the pigs, Satan.

SATAN (growing angry): At the demons’ request!

KAREN: And you consider it coincidence that the entire herd of pigs rushed into the river and drowned?

SATAN: What else could it be?

KAREN: So Jesus saved Legion, showing the world His love and destroyed your demons, showing the world His power, and you consider this your success? Do you have any real success stories, Satan?

SATAN: (yanks off his lapel microphone) This interview is over! You dare to mock me! I am Satan! Do you know what I can do to you? (walking out)

KAREN: Absolutely nothing without God’s permission. Jesus has already saved me.

*You can read about the demoniac in Luke 8:26-39.

Thoughts From My Deck as a Storm Approaches

I sit at my café-style table on my covered deck, this morning, reading “Romans” while in the near distance a storm rumbles closer. My focus on “Romans” is disrupted by the sounds of nature preparing for the storm’s arrival; I stop reading and absorb all the activity. I HAVE to stop, you see, because God says, “Stop reading and pay attention to Me!” And in case I have any intention of ignoring Him, He shatters my ability to focus on the words – so I still myself in the powerful moment and watch.

From my second-story deck, I gaze out, past the rooftops of our waffle-lot houses, to the forest beyond. The treetops form a jagged line against the sky – a kind of horizon, although I don’t think it is a horizon in the true sense of the word.

I can’t see it from my deck, but I think about the creek on this side of the forest – about the deep, rushing water that is sure to come. The weather guy says rain and storms all weekend, severe at times. My kids and I will not be donning our creek-walking boots, nets in hand, gathering treasures – crawdads, snails, fish, trinkets - this weekend. In a few days, we will explore the new treasures sojourning in our section of the creek before the next storm washes them ever closer to the Duck River.

I think about the snake – the one that lives somewhere under the trail bridge that spans the creek – the one that seems to grow bigger each year – the one that the neighborhood moms demand their kids steer clear of because “he may be poisonous”; I know he is not, so my kids and I often observe him, at a respectable distance, as he slithers through the grass or skims the water’s surface disappearing into the creek bank’s raised walls. I wonder what the snake does to prepare for storms. I’ve heard that chickens hunker down and still themselves. Birds become brazenly verbal – nature’s warning sirens, I suppose. I wonder if this is normal or just because in my yard there are two nests filled with babies the birds must rush to protect.

Trees’ leaves stretch heavenward in anticipation, and I can’t help but think of them in praise when I see the underside of those leaves firm and erect thirsting for God’s nourishment. And before you say, “Silly girl, trees can’t praise God,” I direct you to Psalm 148, verse 7-9:

Praise the LORD from the earth,
Sea monsters and all deeps;
Fire and hail, snow and clouds;
Stormy wind, fulfilling His word;
Mountains and all hills;
Fruit trees and all cedars;

The storm arrives with a grand shock of thunder and a bolt so powerful it lights the dark sky long enough to observe its pure-white brilliance. When I recover from the paralyzing jolt to my body and soul, it occurs to me that nature is not swayed by other gods – false gods. It simply respects the power of God and praises Him without question, and I wonder: why can’t human nature get it right?

**Update 5/27/10**

I had no idea of the power of the storms headed for us that morning as I sat on my deck thinking about nature's storm preparations. I couldn't have foreseen the rain that would pound us for two days straight or the massive flash flooding of our our creeks, rivers, and storm sewers - so intense it turned our interstates to fast-moving waterways. I couldn't have predicted the loss of life or how much damage this storm would do to Nashville and all of Middle Tennessee. Have a look:

Writing Warfare in the Flavor of Apple

I was dashing through my kitchen today, on my way to do something I can't remember, when my eyes captured a glint of a Red Delicious apple among the fruit in the basket on my kitchen table. I grabbed the apple planning to eat it on the go, but when I bit into it, it was... well... delicious; so I had to stop, sit down, and savor it. There are many things I can't do on the go, and eating a truly delicious, shiny Red Delicious apple is apparently one of them.

Analyzing my writing status is another thing I can't manage to do on the go. But when I allow the craziness of routine life to halt for a moment, my mind turns to writing. And as I sat there savoring the Red Delicious that forced my life into a pause, my thoughts turned to writing.

Later today, after my apple intoxication wore off, I wrote to a blogger friend that I have fallen off of my creative axis a bit - that I've been on an involuntary writing hiatus. I haven't been completely not writing, but I've been mostly not writing, and it's throwing my psyche off-balance. It's kind of like if you are used to exercising a lot and then for some reason you miss a few workouts or weeks - your body feels sluggish, and maybe even your mental stability falters a bit. When I'm not writing, my mind feels sluggish, and it's that much harder to get it primed and functioning properly again.

Oddly, this is not the writing stuff I was thinking about as I crunched into that yummy apple. During this involuntary hiatus, I have been reading - and reading - and reading - and reading - and... well, you get the picture. I have four books next to my bed at this moment: From the Belly of the Dragon by Mark Mynheir, A Dash of Style by Noah Lukeman, Firecracker Red by Stellasue Lee, and my Bible. I will absorb a few pages of each before I sleep.

Prior to the apple, I had been at the gym riding a stationary bike and reading Firecracker Red. The first thought that occured to me as I sat eating my apple was, "Helter-skelter. I had no idea helter-skelter had a hyphen in it. It's a good thing I saw that in Stellasue's book." Now, granted, we don't get too many opportunities to write the word helter-skelter, but there's always that "what if". What if I wrote "helter skelter" and sent it to a publisher or agent that way? What if "helter skelter" worked its way into my query letter or proposal? I can hear them now: "If she doesn't check the dictionary for her proposal - her first chance to make a good impression - her manuscript must be a mess. I don't have time to deal with this!" Then my manuscript is sent to the paper cutter, sliced into small squares, and the blank sides used for scrap paper.

A few apple bites later, I thought about the colon. Yes, apples do provide nourishment that leads to a healthy colon, but that isn't the colon I was thinking about. The colon I was contemplating was the one with two dots - you know - the punctuation mark. I know that's an odd thing to think about while eating an apple, but I had just read a chapter on the colon in A Dash of Style the night before. I know what you're thinking. A whole chapter on the colon? Yes, a whole entire chapter, 20 excellent pages, on nothing but the colon shared in a creative and, strangely, beautiful way (the things that excite a writer - we're an odd bunch).

As I neared the apple's core, I thought about how a creative writer can use grammar to their advantage - minimizing it in some places, maximizing it in others, all for the purpose of intent. Lightly pepper in some of the pretty stuff - colons, semicolons, dashes - to make it shine, to give it power, to drive a point. I thought about the short story I read in my recent edition of The Storyteller that was filled with cliches and another story that described the looks of EVERY character by comparing them to a movie star. Both were cumbersome to read, and I wondered how they made the cut. I thought about the book of Job and how I just don't understand a lot of it. Yet the prose is so relaxing and beautiful, I read it anyway. Because within its midst, God sends me treasures like:

As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,

And at the last, He will take His stand on the earth.

Even after my skin is destroyed,

Yet from my flesh, I shall see God;

Whom I myself shall behold,

And whom my eyes will see and not another.

My heart faints within me!

- Job 19:25-27

And suddenly a piece of Job sticks as well as all the other thoughts I had while I was under the influence of that apple, and I carry it all with me so I can pour it out through my writing... that is, when I start writing again.

What or who is keeping me from writing? Maybe I shouldn't have been eating that apple and thinking about writing but actually writing. In one ear I hear, "You're not on a writing hiatus; you're in a heavy learning phase." In the other ear I hear, "But you should be writing through your learning phases."

I suppose the only question that remains is whether that Red Delicious was from the tree of life or the tree of knowledge. Was there a tempter responsible for my indulgence - a Screwtape, if you will, discouraging my writing? Or was that apple always mine for the taking - God filling me up so I could be more persuasive as I pour it out?

Breathing Room

In a tiny jar
a snail slithers
among rocks and crevices
and a slice of carrot.
Occasionally she stretches
out and clings to glass - finding comfort
in traveling its circumference.
As I observe her slimy underside
suctioned inside her glass prison,
I realize six holes in a metal lid provide air
but leave no room to breathe.
Wistfully, I remove the lid
and set her free.

"Up From the Grave He Rose"

I'm sitting in front of my open window on this perfect day. Outside birds are chirping and busying themselves with homebuilding, preparing to birth new life into the world. The trees are in various stages of budding and blossoming, bursting forth delicate young leaves. The light, warm breeze wafting through my window carries the clean scent of all of God's newness.

As I sit here enjoying this special treat from God, I think of how He transforms nature - winter to spring, slow decay to instant rebirth, death to resurrection. How can anyone experience a moment like this and deny the salvation Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection offers?

God's glory, His precious Son, vivid and bold, in a simple moment near an open window. It's amazing how He replenishes spring moisture to our winter-dehydrated souls. May God replenish your soul with the promise of new life through the celebration of Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection.

"There in the ground His body lay,

Light of the world, by darkness slain;

Then bursting forth in glorious day,

Up from the grave He rose again."

On Christian Perfection

Many people think Christians should be perfect. We aren't! And when we aren't, people call us hypocrites when in reality we are simply human. More disturbing, Christians often do this to each other - brother against brother, leader against leader, denomination against denomination.

My view of humanity is simple - you are a Christian or you aren't.

If you are a Christian, your human body shares space with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the perfect part. It's the part that places in us the desire to be like Jesus. It's the part that puts that check in our system when the human side of us does something really stupid.

And the human side of us always does something really stupid.

If it weren't for our tendencies toward humanness, Jesus would not have had to offer himself as the perfect sacrifice to atone for our poor choices. If God had fully infused us with the Holy Spirit, making us wholly perfect, there would have been no need for Jesus. But God did not want perfect zombies wandering the earth loving Him under divine force. He wanted children who would love Him by choice. Through the teachings and actions of Jesus, God sent the perfect Holy Spirit to dwell in our imperfect human hearts.

Through the Holy Spirit, Christians are led, disciplined, inspired, and encouraged. And when our humanness causes us to stumble off the road as we walk, the Holy Spirit is there to gently nudge us back or, at times, give us a good strong kick in the rump to get us back on track.

Does that mean it's okay for a Christian to sin with wild abandon, without conscience, and without any desire to seek forgiveness? No! In fact, if you are sinning and there is no check in your system (that little nudge that says, maybe I shouldn't be doing this), then I implore you to check your heart and determine if the Holy Spirit truly resides there.

When a Christian finds herself gossiping about the unmarried couple who just moved in across the street, the Holy Spirit will jump in and say, "Whoa, child, are you so freely without sin that you can speak so boldy of your neighbor?" The Christian will say "no, I am not!", realize she has stumbled, stabilize herself, invite her neighbors to church, and continue on her walk. Will she continue to make mistakes? Yes, she is human, but she will learn and grow and try to do better with each step.

I visualize two roads. One is the spiritual road, engulfed in light, leading to sanctification and a residence in Heaven. The other is the human road, engulfed in dark, leading to the rewards of the flesh and... well... death, hell, the end.

As the Christian walks along the spiritual road, her eyes occasionally veer toward the temptations of the dark and inviting medians and off-ramps. If her relationship with God is strong, the Christian will turn her eyes back toward Heaven. But in a weak and tired moment, her big toe will cross into the dark, and then her leg, and then her shoulder, and before she knows it, she is walking or sprinting up the dark off-ramp. But the Christian is blessed because when she gets to the top of the off-ramp, the Holy Spirit will grab her ear and drag her across the street, down the on-ramp, and back onto the will-lit road.

Yes, the Christian has sinned, but she has not abandoned the road. And why is this okay? Because God, knowing we are human and sin is inherent, sent Jesus to cover us when stumble.

In contrast, as the non-Christian walks along the human road she has many choices. God tries to make the non-Christian's choice easy. The off-ramp to Heaven is a flashing bright light - easy to spot along the dark road. God gives the non-Christian many opportunities to take the right exit, but all of the temptations in the medians and off-ramps of the spiritual road are abundant and easily accessed as the non-Christian wanders along the dark road. She doesn't even have to venture onto the medians or the off-ramps - the fun is in her immediate path. She doesn't have to think about it as she passes the flashing off-ramp to the light road. She's having too much fun on the dark road - what could be better?

Besides, the spiritual road will just tell her all she's doing wrong, and when she does wrong, she'll just be called a hypocrite like all those "so-called Christians". So why bother, she decides, and eventually she doesn't even notice the flashing off-ramp anymore.

Here's the interesting thing about a Christian. A Christian will also step onto the non-Christians' dark roads so we can flash our bright light a little closer to those who have begun to ignore the well-lit off-ramps. So sometimes Christians haven't stumbled off the spiritual road at all - we've just decided to carry it with us as we search for those who haven't yet discovered it.

So, if you are not a Christian, I, an imperfect and sinning Christian, will continue to flash a light as you journey along your dark road. I pray you follow it to the right exit before your road ends.

Oh, and there is such a thing as Christian perfection. He is called Jesus Christ.

Scripture Reference: 1 John 1:5-10

Snow Is...

Flakes of pearls
dropping gracefully from the heavens
stilling the world for a moment
or a time
determined by its abundance.

Delicate bullets in bulk
with the power to destroy –
a life, a vehicle,
a structure, a livelihood –
in an instant.

White periods
making a statement,
the result of a somber storm,
releasing life’s anxieties
in a soft, final landing.

A giant snow cone
inspiring children to create
weapons, men, igloos, slides –
nature’s extreme
theme park ride.

Tiny flecks of cotton
forming a blanket of calm,
a vast cushioned barrier,
over a harsh,
unforgiving earth.

Frozen rain
falling, clinging,
absorbing, melting,
washing our soiled spirits
revealing a purity thought lost.

An aching absence -

A welcomed relief -

An unexplainable dichotomy

beyond spring’s last thaw.