Thursday, May 31, 2012

Nobody Prays For Satan


From third to fourth grade, I hated this kid and he hated me. His name was Angel. We were literally enemies. We were like Batman and the Joker, except I'm not quite sure who was who. On Valentine's Day, the class would usually give out Valentine cards to everyone. When I received Angel's card, he wrote, "sucks" right under my name and drew a box around it. He went over that box many times. You could tell. I took the card I was going to give him and ripped it. One of my friends came up to me and said, "I heard Angel didn't give you a card." "No." "Here, you can have his," he smiled.

He made fun of my hair because I used to comb it upwards and it looked like an afro. One day I got chosen by the teacher to sit in a table with him and coincidentally, his two best friends. They were girls. One I had a crush on. She was beautiful. I sat quietly in that table the whole time. Except. I forgot what they were talking about, but Angel said, "my dad doesn't really talk to me." And to add lighter fluid to the embers, I broke my silence, "That's good for you." Why did I say that? I don't know. We were both jerks. Neither of us was Batman. We were both Jokers. Trying to top the other. There could only be one Joker. At night, I wished something bad would happen to him. I wished an alien spaceship would come and swoop him away to a far away planet. Preferably Venus. Where it's immensely hot and the thick clouds keep it hot. Just drop him off there please, little green men.

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Then one day, in library class, the teacher sat us together in one table. We had to share some broken crayons that were inside a green strawberry basket. I love the smell of crayons. In my mind, I screamed. It was going to be the worst year of my life I thought. But something happened. We became best friends. I didn't want anything bad to happen to him. No, please don't take him away to Venus. All the hate was gone. We walked home after school one day and he said, "I wonder why we used to fight all the time." And we laughed. But like most of my closest friends usually do, he moved away to another city. I haven't seen him since.


From what I've read in the Bible, Lucifer was an angel created by God. He was one of the top ranking angels you could say. However, his head inflated like a water balloon. Like when you play hot potato with a water balloon and are afraid it will pop on you. And it did. God was all wet. He wanted to take God's place. Maybe even be above him. So God kicked him out of Heaven and replaced the locks. So now, with nowhere to go, he hangs around this world trying to make the people worship him and oppose God. However, his fate is sealed. He will be cast in the lake of fire forever. If we know this, he must know this too. Imagine the agony he must be suffering. He knows he will never go to heaven.

(Surface of Venus, taken by the Russians in early 70s.)

And yet, nobody prays for him. He, perhaps, needs it the most. He made a mistake. He's the Joker. Just like many of us are or once were. Just like many of us who wanted a second chance. Maybe he's angry because nobody really likes him. Nobody sat with him and made friends with him. Maybe he's heartbroken. Many of us fail. But we are cheered up by a close friend. "Learn from your failures. You'll succeed eventually." But no matter what he does, he will be cast in the lake of fire. A failure no matter what he does. No second chance. His fate, sealed.

Trillions of prayers must be sent everyday. We pray for a new car. More money. Health for yourself. Health for your friends and family. "You'll be in our prayers," people say when you're in trouble. You're going overseas to war. You're not sure if you'll even be back. "You'll be in our prayers." You don't know if your fate is sealed. And it somehow makes you feel good. It makes you feel brave. You feel loved. Safe. But nobody prayed for Satan. The one person who probably feels the worst in the universe.

He had it all, and then went to nothing. That's how you know he's suffering. A person who's had nothing his whole life is not fazed. It takes going from a high to a low. Many people lose their business. Others lose their son or daughter. That happiness is ripped away from them. And we want comfort. We want a prayer.


Now Imagine being Satan. You got kicked out of Heaven. And your whole story is on some book. And in this book, it also says that you will go to Hell for all eternity. You feel depressed. Everybody hates you. God hates you. You're the laughingstock of Heaven. Imagine having your parents hate you. But 100 times worse. You don't know where to turn. You lose hope. There's that pain in your chest. In your throat. The feeling of uncertainty. "Could that book be true about my future?" you wonder. You look at your reflection in the ocean and you're hideous now. Your beautiful white wings are gone. You no longer shine. You're red. The lowest on the visible color spectrum. You have scales. And the horns on your head make your head heavy so now you have to stand with a hunch. You ask for help, but everyone fears you. They all know your story. You cut yourself. You begin to plot. The bitter hatred you feel towards everyone now. Misery loves company. So you begin to cause mischief. Chaos. You make people kill each other. And you laugh.

But at the end of that laughter, your eyes grow wide open in disbelief. You're doing exactly what the Bible says you would do. "It's true," you say. You want to cry. But you're too depressed. You seek friends, but they all double cross you. You found some, but they're just your friends because they fear you. You curse God. You hate yourself. So now, like a suicidal person, you want to kill yourself. You want the suffering to stop. But you can't die. You're Satan. So you wait until the Book of Revelations reveals itself to the world. Just to get it over with. Just to let the suffering stop.

But maybe, just maybe, the meaning to life is to forgive Satan. What nobody thought of doing. To pray that his suffering stops. To make him an angel again. Then maybe God will listen. He'll be happy you prayed for him. He'll go to Satan and sit with him on some table made of molten rock. The Devil has tears going down his red face. God pats him on the back. They both smile. And they walk to Heaven together.

"I wonder why we used to fight."


"But who prays for Satan? Who in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most."

- Mark Twain

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