Let me continue. To me this was a wholly new concept and yet I realized that I had been flinging accusations at God all along. I had insisted that the whole evolutionary process could not be what He wanted or intended.
Now He had told me plainly to stop, and to examine further. And He also gave me to know again, in wide perspective, the immensity and diversity of the developments I witnessed. In sum, He visited upon me a flash of His perspective, which mine could never be.
As I said, I was humbled. 'May I join with you, Lord?' I asked. And He said, 'But of course'. We were reconciled, and slumbering in the divine light, yet I kept waking as an animal might wake, ever on alert for its lurking enemy, waking and fearing, But what is happening now down there!
Lo and behold! Are those the words I should use, or shall I speak like J, the author of the book of Genesis and say 'Look!' with all its fierce power. The hairy upright ones had begun a strange ritual. The hairy upright ones had begun all kinds of different patterns of complex behavior. Allow me for this moment to skip over to the most significant. The hairy upright ones had begun to bury their dead.
[ he's so deeply invested in his tale that he looks for the first time convincingly unhappy, and yet his face retains its beauty. One couldn't say unhappiness distorted him. Nothing could. He studies Des for a long time, and it's possible to sense his frustration, that he can't begin to get across to him all that he wants des to know. ]
This meant...many things, [ at length he whispers, shaking his finger emphatically ] For this ritual of burying came along with a kinship we had seldom if ever witnessed in any other species for more than a moment - the caring for the weak by the strong, the helping and the nourishing of the crippled by the whole, and finally, the burial with flowers. Des, flowers! Flowers that were laid from one end to the other of the body softly deposited in the earth, so that the Eleventh Revelation of Evolution was that Modern Man had commenced to exist. Shaggy, stooped, awkward, covered with apelike hair, but with faces more than ever like our faces, modern man walked on the earth! And modern man knew affections such as only angels had known in the universe, angels and God who made them, and modern man showered that affection upon his kindred, and modern man loved flowers as we had, and grieved as - with flowers - he buried his dead.
When I was with God, I saw as God sees - I saw the humans with their families; I saw the humans gathered to witness and assist the birth; I saw the humans cover the graves with ceremonial stones. I saw as God sees, and I saw as if Forever and in All Directions, and the sheer complexity of every aspect of creation, every molecule of moisture, and every syllable of sound issuing from the mouths of birds or humans, all seemed to be nothing more than the product of the utter Greatness of God. Songs came from my heart which I have never equaled.
And God told me again, 'Lucifer, stay close to me in Heaven. Watch now from afar.'
'Must I, Lord?' I asked. 'I want so badly to watch them and watch over them. I want with my invisible hands to feel their softening skin.'
'You are my angel, Lucifer. Go then and watch, and remember that all you see is made and willed by me.'
I looked down once before leaving Heaven, and I do speak now in metaphor, we both know this, I looked down and I saw the Creation teeming with Watcher angels, I saw them everywhere, engaged in their various fascinations as I have described, from forest to valley to sea.
But there seemed something in the atmosphere of Earth that had changed it; call it a new element; a thin swirl of tiny particles? No, that suggests something greater than what it was. But it was there.
I went to Earth, and immediately the other angels confirmed for me that they, too, had sensed this new element in the atmosphere of Earth, though it was not dependent upon the air as was every other living thing.
'How can this be?' I asked.
'Listen,' said the Angel Michael. 'Just listen. You can hear it.'
And Raphael said, 'This is something invisible but living! And what is there under Heaven that is invisible and lives but us!'
Hundreds of other angels gathered to discuss this thing, to speak of their own experience of this new element, this new presence of invisibility which seemed to swarm about us, unaware of our presence yet making some vibration, or that is, inaudible sound, which we struggled to hear.
'You've done it!' said Zerachiel. 'You've disappointed God with all your accusing and all your rages, and He has made something else other than us that is invisible and has our powers! Lucifer, you have to go to Him and find out if He means to do away with us and let this new invisible thing rule.'
'How can that be so?' asked Michael. Michael is, of all the angels, one of the most calm and reasonable. Legend tells you this; so does Angelology, folklore, the whole kit and caboodle. It's true. He is reasonable. And he pointed out now to the distressed angels that these tiny invisible presences of which we were aware could not conceivably equal our power. They could scarcely make themselves known to us, and we were angels, from whom nothing on earth could possibly hide!
'We have to find out what this is,' I said. 'This is bound to the earth and part of it. This is not celestial. It is here, dwelling close to the forests and hills.'
Everyone agreed. We were beings from whom the composition of nothing was secret. You might take thousands of years to understand cynobacteria, or nitrogen, but we understood them! But we didn't understand this. Or let me say, we could not recognize this for what it was.
We listened; we reached out our arms. We perceived that it was bodiless and invisible, yes, but that it had to it a continuity, and individuality, indeed, what we perceived were a multitude of individualities. And they were weeping, and very gradually, that sound was heard within our own realm of invisibility, and by our own spiritual ears. [ he pauses again ]
You see the distinction I make? They were spiritual individuals.
And as we pondered, as we opened our arms and sang and tried to comfort them, while stepping invisibly and artfully through the material of Earth, something momentous made itself known to us, shocking us out of our explorations. Before our very eyes, the Twelfth Revelation of Physical Evolution was upon us! It struck us like the light from Heaven; it distracted us from the cries of the covert invisible! It shattered our reason. It caused our songs to become laughter and wails.
The Twelfth Revelation of Evolution was that the female of the human species had begun to look more distinctly different from the male of the human species by a margin so great that no other anthropoid could compare! The female grew pretty in our eyes, and seductive; the hair left her face, and her limbs grew graceful; her manner transcended the necessities of survival; and she became beautiful as flowers are beautiful, as the wings of birds are beautiful! Out of the couplings of the hairy ape had risen a female tender-skinned and radiant of face. And though we had no breasts and she had no wings, she looked like US!
[ he stands facing des in stillness, and it's easy enough to know what he means: their large beautiful faces and smooth limbs, and their tender expressions, particularly when they were in their real forms in heaven, do embody the empowered feminine if ever a creature could. He and Azrael are as marble angels, as the statues of Michaelangelo, the absolute preciseness and harmony of the feminine was in their physiques. lucifer is clearly agitated, looking almost as if he's on the verge of wringing his hands. he looks at des intently, as if he would look into him and through him. ]
no subject
Now He had told me plainly to stop, and to examine further. And He also gave me to know again, in wide perspective, the immensity and diversity of the developments I witnessed. In sum, He visited upon me a flash of His perspective, which mine could never be.
As I said, I was humbled. 'May I join with you, Lord?' I asked. And He said, 'But of course'. We were reconciled, and slumbering in the divine light, yet I kept waking as an animal might wake, ever on alert for its lurking enemy, waking and fearing, But what is happening now down there!
Lo and behold! Are those the words I should use, or shall I speak like J, the author of the book of Genesis and say 'Look!' with all its fierce power. The hairy upright ones had begun a strange ritual. The hairy upright ones had begun all kinds of different patterns of complex behavior. Allow me for this moment to skip over to the most significant. The hairy upright ones had begun to bury their dead.
[ he's so deeply invested in his tale that he looks for the first time convincingly unhappy, and yet his face retains its beauty. One couldn't say unhappiness distorted him. Nothing could. He studies Des for a long time, and it's possible to sense his frustration, that he can't begin to get across to him all that he wants des to know. ]
This meant...many things, [ at length he whispers, shaking his finger emphatically ] For this ritual of burying came along with a kinship we had seldom if ever witnessed in any other species for more than a moment - the caring for the weak by the strong, the helping and the nourishing of the crippled by the whole, and finally, the burial with flowers. Des, flowers! Flowers that were laid from one end to the other of the body softly deposited in the earth, so that the Eleventh Revelation of Evolution was that Modern Man had commenced to exist. Shaggy, stooped, awkward, covered with apelike hair, but with faces more than ever like our faces, modern man walked on the earth! And modern man knew affections such as only angels had known in the universe, angels and God who made them, and modern man showered that affection upon his kindred, and modern man loved flowers as we had, and grieved as - with flowers - he buried his dead.
When I was with God, I saw as God sees - I saw the humans with their families; I saw the humans gathered to witness and assist the birth; I saw the humans cover the graves with ceremonial stones. I saw as God sees, and I saw as if Forever and in All Directions, and the sheer complexity of every aspect of creation, every molecule of moisture, and every syllable of sound issuing from the mouths of birds or humans, all seemed to be nothing more than the product of the utter Greatness of God. Songs came from my heart which I have never equaled.
And God told me again, 'Lucifer, stay close to me in Heaven. Watch now from afar.'
'Must I, Lord?' I asked. 'I want so badly to watch them and watch over them. I want with my invisible hands to feel their softening skin.'
'You are my angel, Lucifer. Go then and watch, and remember that all you see is made and willed by me.'
I looked down once before leaving Heaven, and I do speak now in metaphor, we both know this, I looked down and I saw the Creation teeming with Watcher angels, I saw them everywhere, engaged in their various fascinations as I have described, from forest to valley to sea.
But there seemed something in the atmosphere of Earth that had changed it; call it a new element; a thin swirl of tiny particles? No, that suggests something greater than what it was. But it was there.
I went to Earth, and immediately the other angels confirmed for me that they, too, had sensed this new element in the atmosphere of Earth, though it was not dependent upon the air as was every other living thing.
'How can this be?' I asked.
'Listen,' said the Angel Michael. 'Just listen. You can hear it.'
And Raphael said, 'This is something invisible but living! And what is there under Heaven that is invisible and lives but us!'
Hundreds of other angels gathered to discuss this thing, to speak of their own experience of this new element, this new presence of invisibility which seemed to swarm about us, unaware of our presence yet making some vibration, or that is, inaudible sound, which we struggled to hear.
'You've done it!' said Zerachiel. 'You've disappointed God with all your accusing and all your rages, and He has made something else other than us that is invisible and has our powers! Lucifer, you have to go to Him and find out if He means to do away with us and let this new invisible thing rule.'
'How can that be so?' asked Michael. Michael is, of all the angels, one of the most calm and reasonable. Legend tells you this; so does Angelology, folklore, the whole kit and caboodle. It's true. He is reasonable. And he pointed out now to the distressed angels that these tiny invisible presences of which we were aware could not conceivably equal our power. They could scarcely make themselves known to us, and we were angels, from whom nothing on earth could possibly hide!
'We have to find out what this is,' I said. 'This is bound to the earth and part of it. This is not celestial. It is here, dwelling close to the forests and hills.'
Everyone agreed. We were beings from whom the composition of nothing was secret. You might take thousands of years to understand cynobacteria, or nitrogen, but we understood them! But we didn't understand this. Or let me say, we could not recognize this for what it was.
We listened; we reached out our arms. We perceived that it was bodiless and invisible, yes, but that it had to it a continuity, and individuality, indeed, what we perceived were a multitude of individualities. And they were weeping, and very gradually, that sound was heard within our own realm of invisibility, and by our own spiritual ears. [ he pauses again ]
You see the distinction I make? They were spiritual individuals.
And as we pondered, as we opened our arms and sang and tried to comfort them, while stepping invisibly and artfully through the material of Earth, something momentous made itself known to us, shocking us out of our explorations. Before our very eyes, the Twelfth Revelation of Physical Evolution was upon us! It struck us like the light from Heaven; it distracted us from the cries of the covert invisible! It shattered our reason. It caused our songs to become laughter and wails.
The Twelfth Revelation of Evolution was that the female of the human species had begun to look more distinctly different from the male of the human species by a margin so great that no other anthropoid could compare! The female grew pretty in our eyes, and seductive; the hair left her face, and her limbs grew graceful; her manner transcended the necessities of survival; and she became beautiful as flowers are beautiful, as the wings of birds are beautiful! Out of the couplings of the hairy ape had risen a female tender-skinned and radiant of face. And though we had no breasts and she had no wings, she looked like US!
[ he stands facing des in stillness, and it's easy enough to know what he means: their large beautiful faces and smooth limbs, and their tender expressions, particularly when they were in their real forms in heaven, do embody the empowered feminine if ever a creature could. He and Azrael are as marble angels, as the statues of Michaelangelo, the absolute preciseness and harmony of the feminine was in their physiques. lucifer is clearly agitated, looking almost as if he's on the verge of wringing his hands. he looks at des intently, as if he would look into him and through him. ]