Note to the reader: This mysterious letter, through some quirk in the cosmic aether, found its way on to an Internet Christian bulletin board shortly after a poster signing himself “Satan” logged on briefly to post various badly spelled obscenities as proof of his ability to “think for himself” and pull the noses of Christians everywhere. Little did he realize that he himself was the subject of intense discussion among the demons: a snippet of which somehow reached earth.
One can only guess at the mysterious metaphysical forces at work which forwarded this hellish “interoffice communiqué” between devils to our world of mortal flesh. I don’t think it’s what Microsoft Internet Explorer had in mind when they coined the invitation “Where Do You Want to Go Today?” But since people like our obscene poster are rather frequent in cyberspace, I pass it on to give us all some insight into some of the spiritual dynamics at work in such acts of “free thought.”
Mark Shea is Senior Content Editor for Catholic Exchange. You may visit his website at www.mark-shea.com check out his blog, Catholic and Enjoying It!, or purchase his books and tapes here.
A Squeak of Puerility
My Dear Slimemold:
I see the Lowerarchy still has a good solid policy in force for keeping the human patients in that delightful state of perpetual adolescence which fancies the mere mention of sexual intercourse to be equivalent with blasphemy. American humans, being apostate Puritans by and large, are particularly rewarding specimens in this regard, and make such delightful sport for us (though it is unfortunate that we have never been able to sever their link of dependence on the Enemy's revolting delight in sexual pleasure that is at the heart of His absurd creative act).
By all means, continue to urge your patient to spray paint “graphic sexual references” (as the creatures love to call them) across cyberspace in the empty and pointless belief that he is somehow standing up for some grand principle of freedom or whatnot. You may wonder if it is possible even for a human creature to not see what a venal and pathetic little gesture of vandalism such a squeak of puerility is–like noisily wiping one's nose on one's sleeve during a philosophical debate–but it is, Slimemold, it is! Play your man well and he will actually fancy himself a titanic creative force for upsetting the Established Order of Things, a Miltonesque “Satan” who is daring to hurl his intellectual might against the Powers of Oppression. Yes, Slimemold, the capacity for vainglory among these hairless bipeds is limitless. In their fascination with themselves at such moments, it never occurs to the creature that sex is the creation of the Enemy, not of us, and that one of His main purposes is to maximize its pleasure by making it an expression of love so profound that the creature would be dazzled by the least imagination of it (if it had any imagination).
Don't Remind Him of Who Invented Sex
Happily, your creature is so impoverished in its inner life that it can only conceive of “sin” as the breaking of some arbitrary “rules.” It is utterly blind to the fact that here, as in so much else, the “rule” is made for man, not man for the rule and the Enemy hates the sexual dysfunctions it mentioned in its post, not out of a terror of pleasure, but for much the same reason that He hates to see His children in solitary confinement, or lonely, or despised: because He has made the little vermin for love and communion with one another. The Enemy loathes the strip-mining of pleasure from that deeper reality of love for the same reason He loathes watching a lonely and depressed man weighing 500 pounds try to strip-mine the pleasure of Twinkies wolfed down in secret from the larger beauty of a table surrounded by love and laughter.
The creature, blind to that disgusting reality of communion and mutual joy that is not only marriage, but friendship, camaraderie and all other sorts of human communion, can only imagine that the Enemy forbids misuse of sex out of a Puritan loathing of pleasure (much as the glutton imagines the Enemy has some special vendetta against Twinkies). See to it therefore, that it never crosses his mind to ask who Christians think invented sex. Rather, continue to fill his adolescent mind with as much self-congratulation as it will hold for his “courage” in pointing out that sexual pleasure exists (as though none of the other hairless bipeds, many of whom have several children, had never heard this).
Hell's Distrust of Lust
And let him keep the nom de plume “Satan”. Besides being amusing to Our Father Below (as the posturings of a skinny adolescent are funny to a bodybuilder), it helps immensely in reinforcing that Miltonesque sense of grandeur of purpose that so beautifully blinds him to the delightfully petty nature of his actions. With luck, you will be able to turn him from the (at present) relatively minor sins of the flesh which are the unfortunate fascination of adolescence and move him into the really productive sins of the spirit (pre-eminently Pride) which are the real goals of our work among the creatures. Never forget what the creature must never discover: that since sex is fundamentally the creation of the Enemy, we are always forced to play on His playing field, with the consequent danger that the patient may one day awaken to the fact that it is we, not He, who despise sex (as we despise all creation) and mean to rob him of it and all other goods forever.
As a tempter with aeons of experience, I assure you that I would much rather have your man proceed directly to the spiritual sin of pride than dally about with the much duller sins of the flesh. With pride there is never the danger of “falling in love.” With sins of the flesh, there is always the chance the Enemy will awaken in the patient some slumbering ember of genuine love for another person and, thereby, draw him to the possibility of the ultimate love that He has given the creatures in His own incarnation, death and resurrection. Pride is happily immune from all such dangers. Unfortunately, though our Advertising department is making excellent strides, most of the cultural bellwethers of the American humans have not yet been trained to value such cold, imperial, sin above these unutterably more flaccid, boring and warm sins of the flesh.
Ah well. Hell wasn't built in a day. Meantime, keep me posted on the creature's progress.
Until then, I remain,
Your affectionate uncle,
Corkscrew