The Devil You Know…
Lucifer. Mephistopheles. Satan. The Prince of Darkness. No matter what we call him, the Devil is our symbol for what is bad and undesirable. From our human perspective, we often view the world in simple black and white – a struggle between light and dark. We want to vanquish the bad so the good can prevail. In fact, good and bad can’t be separated, just as you can’t separate a shadow from its source.
Seems to me – Satan used to play a bigger part in our lives, in books, on TV, movies, all featuring the devil and his dirty dealings. I’m not talking about a pledging your blackened soul to “him” or proper devil worshiping – I’ve just noticed that in the last few years you just don’t hear about him as much, he isn’t appearing as frequently as he used to and that goes for his unholy minions…. when was the last time you heard about someone selling their soul to the devil? or some Satan Worshiping ring busted sacrificing animals? Been awhile I’m betting…..
Where’s he been? What’s he been up to?
Luckily, I have a theory – it’s simple, clear, elegant and I’m quite certain dead on the money. For thousands of years the Devil was the baddest cat in town, despite what you may have heard about Bad Bad Leroy Brown, Lucifer was the guy. Voted least likely to show remorse at his senior prom, he was the one guy you just didn’t want in your corner, responsible – and proud of it – for all the misery and much of the suffering man had to endure in his brief brutal existence. It was easy to foist all mans sorrows on this one supremely evil entity and he gladly took it, perpetuated it, reveled in it. His strength grew based proportionately on the eternally damn souls he collected and personally led into temptation.
So where is he… I think it’s simple – too much competition. Every day we hear on the news of some fresh new hell, some unthinkable atrocity committed by man against man or women or children or nature or animals or the environment or any other number of infinite possibilities. I’m sure at times even Mephistopheles himself, gives his head a shake an wonders where possibly can the line be drawn, what is the furthest boundary of mans inhumanity.
The Devil need no longer go out and actively canvass for souls, actively pursue opportunities to corrupt and twist the intentions of mankind, mankind is quite capable all on their own of sinking to the lowest, basest common denominator and doing what only a few short years ago would have been unthinkable and now, isn’t even considered a lead story….
Feeling Inspired now? You’re welcome…
Have a Great Day