New Years with the Devil
January 2, 2012 by Billy Coffey · 1 Comment
He came to me on New Years Eve as I stood outside gazing up at the stars—not so much a person (and not so much a light, as the Book says he can appear), but as a shadow in my own thoughts. He stood with me there beneath the moon and Venus and Orion, saying nothing at first, letting me speak because he can do no damage unless invited first.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
And he answered that he was roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.
“You still do that?”
Oh yes, he answered, oh yes indeed, I have done so for ages and will for ages more. Nothing gives me greater pleasure.
“Not many people believe in you anymore,” I told him. “You know that, right?”
He was well aware of that. In fact, he surprised me by saying that was what he wanted. It made things easier, he said, when it came to his work.
“Guess this is a pretty rough time of the year for you, huh?” I smiled as I said that, not because it was funny but because it was true. “You must hate Christmas more than the ACLU.”
True, he said. Christmas and Easter were not his favorite things. And he confessed that it was not so much the joy and peace that bothered him as it was the hope. He said he hated hope most of all. But tonight was New Years, and there was no better time for him.
“Why’s that?”
Really? he asked, and in my mind I saw him shake his head in wonder. You really don’t know? Why, think about it. How many people this moment are huddled together in bars and at parties with drinks in their hands? How many right now are making their resolutions (he told me he loved resolutions almost as much as our nonbelief) and promising themselves they will do better this time around? As if things could change so easily just with the turning of the calendar!
He chuckled then, and there was a chill in his laugh that even the December wind could not match.
How many people out there want nothing more than to put this year behind them? he asked me. How many want to drink those memories away? And how many think this next year will be everything this year wasn’t? I’ll change, they say. I’ll do better. But in the end it never works, and do you know why?
“Why?”
Because change hurts. Because change won’t come until it hurts more to stay the same than it does to become something different. And that’s where I win. People will endure a plain life even if they want something more, because a plain life is a painless one.
He said something else to me then. It was soft and swallowed by the wind, but I think he said that he will always win so long as we believe we are ordinary. I’m almost positive that’s what he said.
He left me then under the stars. Midnight came and went, bringing with it another year—365 days that promise the same hope and fear and longing that every year before it has held.
I hope he doesn’t come back, even though I know he will. He comes to us all sooner or later, whether we believe in him or not.
This I know: the hope I long for and the change I want in myself won’t come as easy as the turning of a calendar page. It will be hard for me. For you, too. It will often hurt and sometimes seem impossible. But I think that’s how it should be.
None of us should want a plain life.
Because none of us are ordinary.
The second biggest lie
July 13, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 39 Comments
Being a parent of young children is all about deciding which parts of the world you let in now and which you keep out as long as possible.
For instance.
News? Out. There is no good news. News is meant to depress people. But Sunday morning comics is in. Comics are meant to make you laugh.
Hannah Montana? No. Phineas and Ferb? Yes.
Pro wrestling? Not hardly. But baseball can always provide both quality entertainment and much education.
You get the idea.
This applies to all things spiritual as well. God and Jesus and angels are definitely in, but the darker side of theology goes unmentioned. My kids don’t know what hell is. Or demons. They don’t understand that there are some people in this world who hate their faith and them for having it. The world is a nasty place. I figure part of my job for now is to do all I can to keep that nastiness away. They’ll find out about it all sooner or later.
And maybe sooner.
Our nighttime routine was interrupted yesterday evening by this inquiry from my daughter: “Daddy, who’s Satan?”
The question caught me by surprise. If hell and demons were temporarily off limits, then certainly Satan was, too. Seven-year-olds have fantastic imaginations. Having the thought of a horned and pitchfork-tailed demon rolling around in her mind would make for some long nights.
But what could I tell her? That Satan is the embodiment of evil? That he is darkness so thick that you had to brush it away with a hand? That he is a fallen angel who prowls the earth in search of souls to murder?
No way.
“Daddy?” she said again.
“Um…” I said. “Well, Satan is (someone? something?) bad.”
“The baddest?”
“Yes, the baddest.”
She thought about that and said, “What makes him the baddest?”
“The Bible says he’s a liar,” I told her.
“Daddy, everybody lies,” she retorted. “Even me.”
I decided not to pursue that last little bit of information and instead file it away for later. I really wanted to know what she had lied about.
“But he’s the worst liar ever,” I said.
More thinking. “What’s the worst lie he tells?”
“That God doesn’t love you.”
“I know God loves me, Daddy,” she said.
“That’s good. But maybe one day you’ll start thinking that isn’t true. If that happens, then you just remember that’s just a big, fat lie.”
She nodded and then asked, “What’s the second?”
“The second what?”
“What’s the second biggest lie he tells?”
I opened my mouth to answer, and then closed it. What’s the second biggest lie? I had no idea. I’d never really thought about it. To me, there had always been the first and then the rest. Ranking them beyond that seemed a little unnecessary.
But as I sat there and stared into her eyes, I thought about my life and all the lies I had been told. And then I thought about the lies we’ve all been told.
The best falsehoods are the ones that aren’t told to us as much as they are felt by us. One we accept as truth because that’s what the evidence states.
Those we fall for every time.
It’s easy to lose sight of who we are. Our mistakes and regrets are piled upon one another as a monument to our failure. Stacked high up, blocking the sun. And the Son. It’s hard to see the light when you’re standing in your own shadow.
We carry so much, don’t we? So much knowledge of not only what we’ve done, but what we’re capable of doing. That bad in us is so much easier to see than the good. We dwell upon the depths to which we can plumb but never give thought to the heights to which we can ascend.
There is a holy spark within us all. The thumbprint of the Almighty is stamped upon our hearts. There is a righteous power within us all to rise above where and who we are to become better and more. Too often we limp through our days when we should walk upright, all because we deny the great truth of our existence—we are more than we appear.
“Daddy,” my daughter said again, “what’s the second biggest lie?”
I tucked her beneath the blankets and kissed her forehead.
“That we are all ordinary,” I said.
Author of Snow Day and Paper Angels (November 2011), both by FaithWords. But don't let that fool you. I'm just as confused as anyone.
And that is fine with me, because the great thing about wandering around in the fog is that you never know what you might run into.
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